


Planequest

by LawrenceKinden



Series: Planechase [2]
Category: Ben 10 Series, Final Fantasy, Magic: The Gathering, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Diamondhead (Ben 10), Excalibur, F/F, Fantasy, Fusion, LGBTQ Themes, Magic, Multiverse, Omnitrix, Omniverse, Planeswalker, Shapeshifter, Shapeshifting, Spanking, White Mage (Final Fantasy) - Freeform, spank, spanked
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-07-15 15:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16066445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LawrenceKinden/pseuds/LawrenceKinden
Summary: Having freed herself from the pursuit of Mr. Quillon, Dor revisits her friends while trying to figure out how to return his stolen artifacts to where they belong.Thus continue the adventures of Dorothy Alice Wendy: crossing over fandoms and spanning the Multiverse! This is book 2, following Planechase.





	1. Mysidia, Part 1

Minwu Ornitier walked between groups of students in dull grey robes, each of whom sat upon the floor, eyes closed, faces serene. She walked with careful grace, examining each student in turn. Though her magic was less reliable than her emotions since her pregnancy, she could still feel the magic in others, could still feel the mana stirring, waiting to be shaped by a patient mind.

Except for one.

Jayce Belar didn’t even have his eyes closed. He sat slumped, playing with the hem of his grey apprentice robes. Minwu cleared her throat meaningfully. Jayce looked up at her as though surprised she’d noticed he wasn’t meditating, as though they hadn’t done this twice this week already.

Jayce straightened up and closed his eyes.

Minwu shook her head as she moved on. Jayce had started class by sitting next to Lilli, a girl who had made it clear she wasn’t interested in his attention, and chatting to her through the start of Minwu’s guided meditation. She’d have to deal with him again. She’d rather let the Dean of Students deal with the errant boy, but the dean preferred teachers handle their own discipline problems when possible.

Minwu looked at the clock and sighed when she realized there was only seven minutes left. The babies were wrestling in her womb, and she was ready for a break.

~*~

Most of the students were human, but Dor recognized some of the non-human races she’d seen at the military camp her first time to Ivalice. There were three moogles, short and white-furred; and a group of viera, slim with long, tall ears; and even a baanga, a broad, lizard-like person, all in grey robes.

Dor stayed hidden in a row of bookshelves, looking into the classroom through the open door lining up almost perfectly with her row. She was excited to see Minuw, but didn’t want to disrupt class. Minwu looked good. At the military camp, the white mage had always seemed tight, concerned. Here she looked round, soft, and happy. She wore a pristine white robe with the repeating red triangle pattern along its hem and cuffs. Her pink hair was long and shiny. Her belly was swollen with pregnancy.

“All right,” said Minwu. “I think that’s enough for today. Thank you, all.” The students blinked from their meditation and began to make their way from the classroom into the library proper, where Dor lurked. Dor pretended to be interested in the books where she hid, in case anyone looked her way.

“Jayce, stay a moment,” Minwu’s voice carried through the classroom. A human boy, no older than Dor, winced, but approached Minwu, who stood at a desk at the head of the classroom.

Dor waited at the end of the row of bookshelves.

“I’m sorry, Madam Ornitier,” the boy said.

“I’m sure you are, Jayce,” Minwu replied. “This is the third time this week you’ve been distracted during meditation. It’s one thing to disrupt your own learning, but now you’re disrupting that of your classmates. I may have to speak to Dean Undine about your behavior.”

The boy gasped. “No, please, I…”

Minwu sighed. “Very well. But this cannot continue. Bend over the desk.”

From her position, Dor had a perfect view as the boy bent over the far end of the desk. If he’d looked straight ahead, he’d have seen Dor staring. As it was, he put his forehead on the desk and squeezed his eyes shut. Minwu stood behind him, put a hand on his back to brace herself, then smacked his backside, five times, over his robes. The boy squirmed and whimpered.

Well that’s hardly fair, Dor thought. He didn’t even have to raise his skirts.

When she was done, the boy stood and rubbed his bottom tearfully. Minwu patted his shoulder.

“Get going, Jayce. I’m sure you don’t want to be late for your next class.”

“Thank you, Madam Ornitier.”

Dor waited for the boy to leave before she approached the classroom entryway. Minwu was gathering together a sheaf of papers into a leather scrip. One of the papers slipped from the stack and swayed through the air to settle under the desk. Minwu groaned. She braced a hand on the desk, preparing to kneel. With her belly as swollen as it was, Dor was certain the normally simple task would be arduous.

“I’ll get it,” said Dor. She went down on her hands and knees by the desk and fished the piece of paper out from under it. She stood and handed it to Minwu.

Minwu had her eyes closed and was breathing evenly. “Thank you,” she said, tone strained. And when she opened her eyes, they quickly went wide. “Dorothy?”

Dor smiled, tears coming unbidden. “Hello. You look well.”

Minwu’s face contorted and for a moment, Dor thought she’d be sick. Then the woman began crying. She grabbed Dor and pulled her into a tight hug, awkward over her swollen belly. Dor hugged her back and, spurred by Minwu’s tears, let her own fall.

“You disappeared so suddenly,” Minwu said. “I understand why you did it, but you could have come to me for help. I could have protected you. Oh, I should spank you so hard, Dorothy, do you know that? I’m so happy to see you’re all right.” Despite how hard Minwu’s squeezed her, Dor didn’t pull away. Minwu kissed the top of her forehead. After some time more, Minwu pushed Dor to arm’s length.

“You look… confident.”

Dor smiled. “You look beautiful.” She reached a hand to Minuw’s belly, then hesitated. “May I?”

Minwu beamed. “Of course.”

Dor rested her hand on Minwu’s belly. It was firm though her white mage robes. “How far along are you?”

“About eight and a half months. I’m having twins.”

Dor smiled, then frowned in confusion. “How long as it been since I left?” She’d spent two weeks with Kya in Republic City and three and a half months with the Hufflepuffs at Hogwarts. It wouldn’t surprise her if time flowed differently between planes of existence, but it would provide quite the headache.

“Only about four months,” said Minwu. “I thought the stress of military life was why I missed my moondays, but apparently the one time I let my passions get the better of me…” She blushed. “I was nearly four months pregnant when you arrived and didn’t even know it.”

Dor grinned. “So. Who…”

Minwu blushed harder. She cleared her throat. “Why don’t we go back to my apartment to catch up?”

Minwu lead Dor through the library, past classrooms, to a set of stairs. The library was massive but cramped, with hardwood floors, straight backed chairs, and tall, meticulous book shelves.

“Where are we?” Dor asked as they climbed the stone steps.

“This is the mage school at Mysidia,” Minwu said. “How did you find me here if you didn’t know where here was?”

“I searched for you though the library in my mind. I’ve gotten much better at planeswalking. So long as I can focus on a person who’s in or near a library, I seem to be able to travel directly to the library. It’s only when I’m reaching blindly that I end up somewhere I’ve never been.”

“Curious,” Minwu said.

On the third floor was a set of apartments for teachers who didn’t have quarters off-campus. Minwu was winded at the top of the stairs. Dor offered her arm and Minwu took it gratefully. She leaned on Dor as they made their way to the end of the hallway. The apartment was small and neat, everything in its place, just as Dor expected. There was a bed in one corner piled with quilts and pillows, all neatly folded and stacked. A three-drawer dresser stood at its foot. There was a space for sitting with two bookshelves and two thickly cushioned chairs. A thick rug covered most of the wooden floor and an attached water closet.

Next to the bed was a doubled-sized wooden bassinet, at the ready.

Minwu went to the window at the far end of the room, near the bed, and opened it a crack. “Sorry, Dorothy, I’m always too hot lately.”

“It’s fine,” said Dor. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Minwu shook her head, then said, “Actually, can you help me out of these robes?”

Dor loosed the ties at Minwu’s back and pulled it all over her head, then did the same with her undershift, leaving the white mage in a camisole, drawers, and stockings. Minwu sat on the bed and Dor pulled off her stockings. Minwu sighed with relief. Dor folded the clothes neatly and set them atop the dresser. With Dor’s help, Minwu stood and together they crossed the small apartment to the reading corner. Minwu sat with another sigh and cradled her belly.

“Thank you for understanding, Dorothy. All those layers are stifling.”

“Of course,” said Dor. She sat in other chair and tucked her feet under her.

“So. To answer your question, yes, Li is the father. He and I… it was a while before you arrived in camp. Li and I have known each other for several years. I needed companionship and he provided. I didn’t realize until later that we’d gotten pregnant. And once the commander found out, well, apparently expecting mothers aren’t allowed to serve on the front lines.”

“That seems sensible,” said Dor.

Minwu shot her a glare. “And what of expecting fathers?”

Dor squirmed uncomfortably. “Li’s not here?”

“He visits once every two weeks, but he’s still serving the commander as a bodyguard.”

“Sorry.”

Minwu closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s not your fault.” She looked at Dor and smiled, a few tears tracking down her cheeks. “I’m very glad you came to visit me.” She wiped at her cheeks with a small growl of frustration. “I hope you’ll forgive the crying too. I can’t control that anymore.”

“Of course.”

“All right. “ Minwu took a big breath and cleared her throat. “Now, tell me what’s happened since you left.”

Dor gave her the whole story: Elmira, Quillon, Kya, Hogwarts, and her recent victory. She told her about the room in her mind and the grimoire and her wand. She told her about her studies of the multiverse and escaping the animated library.

“And then I was in a massive rose garden. I fell into a healing fountain. Then these women appeared, a giant woman with pink hair named Rose Quartz, and her bodyguard, a thin woman named Pearl. They were amazing, Minwu.”

Minwu laughed. “You are amazing, Dorothy. I’m so proud of you.”

Dor blushed. “I was only trying to protect myself. Not like you. You protect others.”

Minwu shook her head. “I’m a teacher now. My magic’s been a bit unreliable since the pregnancy got more… intense. And besides, you never gave up. You kept pushing, kept learning. I would dearly love to see your grimoire. I remember you describing it before, back in camp. I realize it only exists in your mind, but I’ve made a study of all kinds of magic. The way you describe magic is unlike anything I’ve seen before.”

Dor considered. It was true her grimoire only existed in her mind, but she’d held Twilight’s Blink in her hand on the roof of the orphanage. Perhaps she could bring the whole book into the real world.

Someone knocked at the door.

“By Ultima, what now?” Minwu said.

“I can answer it,” said Dor, standing. “Do you want me to fetch you a quilt?”

Minwu smiled at her, looking tired. “Would you please?”

Dor took a quilt from the bed and draped it over the nearly nude white mage, then went to the door. It was a young woman in the same grey robes the students in Minwu’s class had worn. She blinked at Dor uncertainly.

“I’m supposed to ask what Madam Ornitier wants for dinner.”

Dor looked over her shoulder and Minwu nodded, so she let the girl in.

“Just the stew and bread, please, Ms. Jocie,” Minwu said. “And some for my guest, please.”

The girl nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

When she was gone, Dor closed the door.

“They deliver your food?”

“Only since it’s gotten difficult for me to go up and down the stairs so often. Honestly, it’s a bit irritating. I’m pregnant, not an invalid. And yet…” She sighed.

Dor took a breath, considering. She’d sat on the bench on Beach City’s boardwalk, thinking a lot about where to go first, which of her friends to see. She’d chosen Minwu because of her pregnancy, but also…

“Were you serious earlier?” Dor asked.

“About what?”

“About, you know, spanking me?”

Minwu raised her eyebrows. “You mean for running away instead of telling me what was going on? Yes. But, you’ve been through so much now…”

“Oh,” said Dor.

Minwu sat up straight, pushing the quilt down to her lap. “Dorothy? Is there something you want to say?”

Dor shrugged. “It’s just… Your spankings made me feel safe. And I… I felt really awful about leaving you like that. I… I was pushed away from Twilight Sparkle and Jubilee, but I left you. I wanted to apologize and to…”

“Well, I’d take you over my lap, but…” Minwu gestured at her belly.

“I could bend over the bed,” Dor said. She blushed. “Unless… If you’re too tired…”

“You’re serious about this?”

Dor nodded.

Minwu pushed herself to her feet and folded the quilt. “All right, young lady. Bare your bottom and bend over the bed. Your spanking is long overdue.”

Dor looked at the door apprehensively. “What about dinner?”

“They won’t be back for a few hours. We have time and privacy.”

Dor took off her shoulder bag and set it on her chair. She undressed, folding each article meticulously and setting it on top of her bag. As she did, Minwu went to her dresser and opened the top drawer. When she was nude, Dor turned to the bed and found Minwu looking at her, arms crossed beneath her ample breasts, hairbrush in one hand.

Dor whimpered, but it was also a kind of sigh.

She went to the bed and bent, resting her forearms on the folded quilts, thrusting her pale, naked bottom high. She felt at once relaxed and nervous, certain Minwu would take good care of her. She tingled all over, a dancing power tickling at her skin. She was vulnerable and eager and when Minwu put a hand on her back, she tensed. Minwu put her wide, soft hip against Dor and Dor leaned into her. The white mage was warm, like hot chocolate on a winter day. Minwu rested the hairbrush back on Dor’s bare bottom. She patted it gently several times, alternating cheeks.

Dor braced herself.

Minwu put her hand on Dor’s waist and held her tight.

The back of that hairbrush stung. Dor’s nates were lit afire in a matter of moments. The rhythmic crack of smooth wood on her bottom filled her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut but they were no barrier to the tears. Her shoulders ached with the weight of the spanking, but she held firm, refusing to collapse. She found she couldn’t stop herself from wiggling, from swaying side to side as much as Minwu’s firm hold would let her, unintentionally trying to escape the stinging hairbrush.

When it was done, Dor felt like the fire of the spanking had spread though her, but it felt good. Like she’d been cleansed or renewed. She had deserved the spanking for leaving Minwu, for not trusting her, or at least talking to her first. Now she felt absolved of that. But more, she felt comforted and loved in a way she never had back at the orphanage. Sister Mary Margaret and the others were the guardians of the orphans, but they had never been as motherly as Minwu. In Minwu, Dor had, not a mother exactly, but perhaps a big sister, someone she could approach with her guilt and come away feeling forgiven, whether though a frank discussion or a firm hug or a thorough spanking.

Minwu pulled a pair of soft, oversized nighties from her dresser. She pulled on one and gave Dor the other. They sat on the bed close together, Minwu’s arm around Dor’s shoulder, cuddling until Dor’s tears went away, until the fire was a blessed warmth, until there was a knock at the door.

Minwu was about to get up, but Dor forestalled her.

“You don’t have to wait on me,” Minwu said.

Dor shook her head. “You’ve done a lot for me today. Let me do this for you.” She kissed Minwu’s cheek and got to her feet.

The same young, grey-clad mage was there with a lap tray bearing two large bowls filled with a thick, creamy vegetable stew and a pair of crusty brown rolls and a pitcher of water with a pair of mugs.

Dor let her in and the girl brought it to Minwu’s bed.

Minwu and Dor ate dinner on the bed together. Despite the several doughnuts she’d eaten in Beach City, Dor found herself voracious. The stew was filling and satisfying. When they were finished, Dor set the dirty dishes on the lap tray outside the door at Minwu’s direction.

Then Dor let Minwu brush out her hair with the same hairbrush she’d used to spank Dor’s bottom. She hadn’t done anything with it since her dunking in Rose’s fountain and subsequent bath in the ocean, so it was tangled and salty, but Minwu was gentle. When her hair was brushed out, Minwu put it in two neat braids and tied them with a pair of spare white ribbons.

Minwu tried to insist Dor should take the bed and she’d sleep in one of the chairs, but Dor flatly refused. When Minwu persisted, Dor said, “Keep that up and I won’t be the only one with a spanked bottom in this apartment.”

Minwu looked at her surprised.

Dor took Minwu’s hands and kissed them. “You aren’t an invalid, but you are pregnant and there’s no way I’m kicking you out of your bed.”

Minwu chuckled. “You really have grown more confident.”

With the chairs pushed together so the seats faced each other, Dor had a cushy if cramped bed. Compared to the standard of Princess Celestia’s palace, or the four-posters in the Hufflepuff basement, it wasn’t terribly comfortable, but she’d made due with worse for the first thirteen years of her life at St. Bridget’s.

~*~

Dor sat in the room in her mind. She hadn’t had a chance to examine it since defeating the book elemental. It was packed with books, more then there’d been before. Every bit of wall space was covered with bookshelves and every shelf was filled with books. Only a narrow doorway in one wall interrupted the flow of books.

Dor took her time examining them.

There were all the books she expected to be there: Wibbly Wobbly, Considering L-Space, Theories of the Multiverse, but there was also There and Back Again and The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. There was Hogwarts, a History, which she’d only read a bit of in the Hogwarts library. And then there was a series of seven books proclaiming itself the Harry Potter series. Dor pulled the first: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. She opened it to the first page:

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

It appeared to be the story of Harry Potter’s years at Hogwarts School of Wizardry. The prime universe, Mr. Quillon had called it. Before she could get sucked into the tale, she reshelved it. She wanted to examine the rest. And there would be time for reading later.

In the way of dreams, her focus shifted, recentering on her grimoire, which sat upon the study table in the center of the room. Minwu had said she’d like to look at it. Dor thought it might be possible. If books she’d never read before, books describing planes of existence as fiction, could exist in the room in her mind, then why couldn’t her grimoire exist outside her mind?

She tucked the brown leather bound book under her arm and went to that narrow door interrupting the bookshelves. She knew by the tingle in her shoulders that door led to the multiverse, through the Blind Eternities, to all manner of planes of existence, one of which included the war-torn land of Ivalice and the mage school at Mysidia and the apartment in which rested Minwu Ornitier.

Dor opened the door and stepped into the book-lined hallway of her mind, letting her fingers trail along the book spines and, just as before, several steps on, a corridor opened on her left.

This time, instead of stepping into the library proper, she stepped into Minwu’s private collection, a pair of bookcases taking up one corner of the small apartment where she’d pushed a pair of chairs together to create a makeshift bed.

~*~

Dor stumbled coming out of the library in her mind and fell onto the chairs with a grunt and a squeak.

“Dor? Are you hurt?”

“No. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I haven’t fallen asleep yet. The babies are kicking. I thought you were asleep though. You were snoring.”

Dor blushed. “I… uh… I snore?”

“Lightly. It’s cute. Li snores like…” Minwu cleared her throat and sniffled

Dor looked at her grimoire in the faint light coming through the window. “I was dreaming. I think. I was in the room in my mind and… you said you wanted to see my grimoire, right?”

“Seriously?” Excitement was evident in Minwu’s tone.

“I think so. Though I was dreaming…” She squeezed the book in her hands, convincing herself it was solid. “On the other hand, dreams have been instrumental in learning my spells. Remember when I set off Jubilee’s Dazzler in our tent?”

Minwu snorted. “I certainly do.” Dor heard Minwu struggle to sit up. And with a scrape and a clink, lit a lantern. The soft orange glow filled the room. “I can’t sleep anyway,” said Minwu. “Can we look at it now?”

Dor smiled. Minwu seemed positively giddy. “Absolutely.”

The night had grown cool and Dor was happy for her borrowed nightgown, but Minwu was still too warm and had divested herself of her underwear. Even in pregnancy, or perhaps because of it, Dor thought Minwu was beautiful. Her wide hips and full breasts compared to Dor’s own slim, boyish figure, made her blush. They sat together on Minwu’s bed and Dor set the grimoire upon her lap.

It was precisely as it had been in her mind. A thick, brown leather cover enclosing pages of a smooth, transparent material. Each page was broken into pockets, three rows of three, and each pocket held a playing card. There were five white cards, two blue, and two red. Dor withdrew Minwu’s Cura, the art for which showed the beautiful, pink-haired white mage limned with blue light, eyes closed, face serene.

It felt cool and heavy in her fingers, like it held a wealth of knowledge, years of training, hard experience. She handed it to Minwu who took it carefully.

“It feels like thick paper, but… I don’t know how to describe it.”

Dor nodded.

“And this script. I can read the title, Minwu’s Cura,” the white mage cleared her throat and Dor saw her blush. “But I don’t know what the rest of this means. I think I recognize the words, but as soon I look at the next it’s like I’ve forgotten it. And yet it feels like the spell I know… condensed.” 

She turned the card over and on the backside was a plain brown field, the same color as the cover of the book, and five colored spheres, each equidistant from the others, like they were points of a pentagon, white at the top and, in clockwise order, blue, black, red, and green.

“What does this mean?” Minwu asked.

Dor shook her head. “I’m not certain. So far everything I’ve learned has a colored border and I think,” she touched the white sphere at the top, “this spell has an association with the white sphere. Likewise the blue with the blue sphere, and the red with the red. But I’ve never seen a black or green bordered card.”

“Well you’ve only been at it for what, six months?”

Dor nodded. “Or thereabouts. It’s been hard to keep track of time, especially with the seasons being inconsistent.”

Mwinu handed back the card, and Dor slipped it into its pocket.

“What do you mean?”

“I told you about Hogwwarts? There, everyone’s just gone on break for Christmas, a winter holiday. But in Beach City, it smelled like spring. Also, it’s the year nineteen-o’eight back at the orphanage, but twenty-fifteen in New York City. So, time’s become hard to keep track of.”

“Fascinating,” said Minwu. “And you’re certain you’re not a time traveler?”

Dor nodded but said, “Not entirely. I think so. The different versions feel different, have a different,” she shrugged, “flavor.”

“Well, so you know, this planet isn’t called Earth, it’s called Gaia.”

“Which is the Greek word for Earth,” said Dor. “On my world there’s a lot of different languages and Gaia is what the Greeks called it.”

Minwu was fascinated by the differences between planes, fascinated that everyone Dor had met on differing planes of existence spoke English, or as Minwu called it, the Common Tongue. Dor told her what Mr. Quillon had said about parallel worlds that had largely the same history versus alternate worlds which had vast differences. She told her about the idea of a Prime Universe and the parallels resultant came from less likey choices. She let Minwu examine each of her spells in turn, describing how it felt to bend water with movement, to organize her mind like a library, to disarm an opponent, to cast blinding sparks.

“I remember how that one felt,” said Minwu with nudge.

Dor giggled. “You already spanked me for that.”

She described how powerful it felt to hurl fire, though Elmira Gulch on the red spells in her mind made her uncomfortable.

“This is the girl who pursued you?” Minwu asked.

Dor nodded.

“There’s always much to learn. Even from our foes. What happened to them?”

“The book elemental stuck Mr. Quillon into nonexistence. Ms. Sharpe, from the Time Bureau, said she rescued the other girls. Including Elmira.” Dor sighed. “Mr. Quillon was awful. He did awful things to those girls and I’m sure he had awful things planned for me, but I still feel bad. I wish our conflict could have been resolved more gently.

“As for Elmira and the others. They’re rescued, but I don’t know what’s happened to them since.” She touched the red cards, they felt warm and eager though the pocket. “She was mean and angry,” Dor said. “She hated me. But I hope she’s all right.”

Minwu kissed the top of her head.

Dor cleared her throat and turned the page. “And look at this.” Gems’ Fusion had a gold border but a pinstripe around the artwork faded from white to blue to red. Dor withdrew the card and handed it to Minwu.

“A combination of colors I suppose,” said Minwu. “She closed her eyes. “I get a sense of this one. It’s about joining together, both literally and figuratively, mentally and emotionally. This is a spell of friendship.”

Dor’s shoulders tingled gently.

“And what of these?” Minwu asked, turning the page.

The next nine-pocket page and the several after that were filled with the full art depictions of the myriad artifacts Mr. Quillon had stolen. They had no text but for their titles. After Dor explained, Minwu nodded thoughtfully.

“I suppose with your paradox summoning the book elemental and subsequent collapse of the mindcage, because the elemental followed you through your mind space, the one anchored to the other. That must have been enough to put his ill-gotten gains into your grimoire.”

She tapped the card entitled Excalibur, the great blade of King Arthur resting upon a bed of samite.

“This is a holy object,” she said. “May I?”

Dor nodded and Minwu withdrew the playing card form its pocket. The white mage hefted it.

“Do you know what this is?”

Dor nodded. “Where I come from, it’s the sword of the legendary King Arthur, head of the Knights of the Round table. He earned it from the Lady of the Lake. It’s a symbol of striking down evil and protecting the innocent. But it’s not real, just a legend. Except Mr. Quillon said King Arthur really existed in some versions of Earth and he got this one from the Lady of the Lake after King Arthur’s death.”

“Fascinating,” said Minwu. “There’s an Ivalice legend of Excalibur as well. It was forged by the dwarves for the Warriors of Light and used to slay the Great Demon Chaos.”

Dor sighed, dejected.

“What’s wrong?”

“I hoped to return these artifacts to their proper places. But if there’s a legend of Excalibur on Earth, and here on Gaia, how do I known which Excalibur this is?”

“The way you describe your magic, it’s largely intuitive. Do you get a feeling from this card?”

Dor shook her head. She didn’t get the same tingly feeling from the stolen artifacts she got from her spells.

“It’s almost like I need to read the card’s mind.”

“Hmm… Telepathy is a rare skill on Ivalice. Do any of your extra-planar friends have access to telepathy?”

Dor immediately thought of Jean, the tall, calm, red-haired woman in the black uniform who, along with Scott, had saved her and Jubilee from the metal spiders. Jean had spoken directly into her mind. And though Dor hadn’t gotten to know her well enough to call her a friend, perhaps Jubilee would put in a good word for her.

~*~

When the sun rose, Dor yawned finally feeling tired.

“Help me up, would you?” said Minwu. “I have to pee and get ready for the day.”

“Oh, you have to teach don’t you? I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up all night.”

Dor helped haul Minwu to her feet.

“That’s not your fault. The babies have kept me up all night more than once. Besides, I’ve only got meditation classes this sememster.”

“Still,” said Dor. “I should have…”

Minwu waved her off. “If you feel that bad, you can help me get ready for the day.”

After Minwu’s turn in the water closet, Dor took one, then she brushed Minwu’s hair and helped her get dressed before opening the laundry bag and selecting her own clothes. She chose the yellow hufflepuff panties, black skirt, and white button up. Though it wasn’t Hogwarts, it was still a school, so Dor decided a bit more formality was in order and put on the black and yellow striped Hufflepuff tie. Finally, she belted on her holster and slid her wand into place snugly.

“That’s fetching,” said Minwu.

“It the Hogwarts uniform. Yellow and black is for House Hufflepuff.”

They were about to make their way down to the mess hall when a solid knock sounded at the door. Dor looked at Minwu who shrugged, so Dor answered it. There stood Li. He wore a dark blue vest and pants cinched with a black belt. His clothes were frayed, worn, and mud-stained. He looked travel weary, but his expression was bright. He bore a lap tray with large, steaming kettle and three ceramic mugs each full of coffee. The aroma perked Dor up.

He smiled at Dor. “When they told me Minwu had a guest, I was hoping it’d be you. It’s good to see you, Dorothy.”

“Good to see you too, papa-to-be.”

Li’s smiled turned to a goofy grin.

“I brought coffee,” he said.

“By all means,” said Dor, stepping aside. She looked at Minwu, expecting her friend to be thrilled, instead she had her arms crossed firmly beneath her breasts, expression firm.

Dor looked from Minwu to Li, whose expression faded, back to Minwu.

“Here,” said Dor, taking the lap tray from Li. “Let me…”

Li came into the room, arms almost outstretched then stopped then put his hands at his side awkwardly. Dor stepped aside, setting the lap tray on one of the chairs. She picked up a mug of coffee and breathed it in.

Neither Li nor Minwu looked ready for coffee, so Dor tried to stay out of the way. There had been coffee at Hogwarts, but it’d been a morning or two since she’d had any, and just the smell was enough to make her shoulders relax. She took a sip and let the warm drink tingle at her taste buds before swallowing. She felt the faint hint of a buzz tease about the base of her skull.

“It’s good to see you,” Li see.

“It’s been nearly three weeks,” said Minwu.

“Yes. I’m sorry. I was going to send a letter, but… Things came up.”

“Things that put you in danger?”

“You know I can’t talk about that,” said Li, tone half pleading, half apologetic.

“If I were there, I could at least protect you. Or heal you. These babies need you,” Minuw said, putting a hand on top of her belly.

“Yes,” said Li. He reached into his vest. “That’s why—“

“I need you,” said Minwu. “I need you here. With me.”

“I know. I…”

“You say that, but you’ve been gone. I know you think Lord Hillary fights for a righteous cause. I know you think the War of the Lions is important. But it’s not more important than your family.”

Li looked about to say something else, then clamped his jaw and withdrew a folded piece of paper from his vest. “The commander gave me this. She insisted, in fact. It’s a letter or discharge.”

Minwu took a breath as though to respond, but her breath was shaky and tears spilled down her cheeks. Within moments, she was crying uncontrollably. Li went to her and she hugged him fiercely, making fists in the back of his vest. Li wrapped his arms gently around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

Quietly as she could, Dor left the apartment, went down the hall and sat at the top of the stairs where she drank her coffee.

~*~

They ate breakfast together in the mess hall. Though Minwu had obviously been crying, she practically glowed. She and Li sat very close together.

The magic school at Mysidia was offering Li a teaching position, training those mages who expected to find themselves on the front lines in the rudiments of physical self-defense. Today he would move the both of them into one of the school’s family accommodations, a cozy cottage on campus, but not in the library itself. All of this Li told them with unbridled enthusiasm.

When it was time for Minwu’s first class, Li went upstairs to move her things to their new cottage. Dor went with Minwu to class where she was introduced as Minwu’s apprentice from a foreign magic school. This garnered Dor a lot of curious looks, but no one bothered to speak to her. She sat with them and meditated at Minwu’s direction. She found she could sit in silent darkness, feeling the presence of the room in her mind, with comforting ease.

During Minwu’s third class, Dor was joined by a boy. It was Jayce, the same boy she’d seen spanked yesterday. He smiled at her in a friendly way that reminded her of her fellow Hufflepuffs. It wasn’t that the other students in Minwu’s meditation classes had been unfriendly, rather cautiously standoffish. This boy had no such reservations.

“Hi. I’m Jayce.” He stuck out his hand.

Dor shook firmly and saw him wince slightly. Though she was sure he couldn’t be younger than her, he seemed very childlike. Dor had just turned thirteen the month before all this started, but she found she’d never felt much like a child.

“Dor. Nice to meet you.”

“So, you’re Madam Ornitier’s apprentice?”

Dor nodded. At the head of the room, Minwu began leading them through meditation. Dor closed her eyes, feeling the peace of the last two periods settling about her shoulders.

“Were you with her in the War of the Lions?”

Dor opened one eye to find Jayce looking at her with unabashed curiosity. “Yes.”

“Wow. I’m going to serve on the front lines one day.”

Dor frowned. Her experience in that military camp had been brief, but the little she’d seen had convinced her she wasn’t excited by war. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“What’s it like at your school?”

Dor snapped her eyes open. “Young man, if you don’t want to find yourself with a spanked bottom, I suggest you begin your meditation.” Jayce blushed and hunched his shoulders. Dor bit her tongue. On the one hand, he was annoying and she didn’t feel like she owed him anything. On the other, she could see her comment had stung. “Look. You want to be a mage in the War of the Lions? Meditation is the first step.”

“But it’s so boring.”

Jayce’s tone held an edge of whining, and it was all Dor could do not to spank him herself.

“The very basics of magic are about concentration, focus, imagination and metaphor. If you can’t even manage that, you’ll never be able to cast Cura.” As she said the word, the white-bordered card flickered in her mind.

“I don’t—“

Dor held up a hand. “Focus, Jayce.”

“On what? The blackness behind my eyelids? A bowl of water?”

“How about a room?”

“What?” He sounded curious.

“Imagine a room in your mind. It’s your room. Only you can go there and it can be anything you want.” Jayce took a breath, but Dor continued to forestall him. “Imagine you’re sitting in the middle of that room. Imagine it has everything you need to be comfortable.”

“My books?” Jayce’s voice was quieter, calmer.

“Yes. Tell me about the books.”

“My grandpa’s old war journals. His theorems on black magic. Mom’s book of sword forms. The tales of Bartz the Adventurer…”

“Can you see them?” Dor asked. “Are they on a shelf in the room in your mind?”

“Yeah. Okay. I can see them.”

“Excellent. I want you to imagine them in minute detail. Every crease. Every wrinkle. What do they smell like? What do they sound like when you flip through the pages? And when you’ve got them firm in your mind, look at the bookshelf. Is it made of wood? What kind? What color?”

Dor paused and took a breath. She took another, waiting, and when she took a third and Jayce didn’t speak, she opened an eye to look at him. He sat up straight, eyes closed, breath even.

Dor smiled.

~*~

At the end of the day, Dor sat with Minwu and Li in their new little cottage. Li had brought everything of Minwu’s into the cottage from the apartment, which was mostly the clothes and books. Dor noticed the bassinet had been brought and stood next to a bed big enough for the two of them. All through dinner, Dor couldn’t help but notice all the little looks and touches passing between the two.

When the meal was done, Dor pushed back from the table and stood.

“You’re not going, are you?” Minwu asked, tears immediately at her eyes.

“I’ll visit, I promise,” said Dor. “But I need to start figuring out how to return all those stolen artifacts.”

Minwu stood and came around the table to give Dor a hug. “I’m going to be very cross if ‘soon’ turns out to be more than a week. I’m serious. I’ll worry if you’re gone too long.”

Dor nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Li gave her a hug and kissed the top of her head.

Dor turned to the bookshelves on the far end of the room, still only half full, and felt a tingle along her shoulders. She walked toward them and a corridor opened in her mind. She stepped through and slipped between.


	2. Omniverse

Benjamin Tennyson crept through the woods on silent, padded feet. Wildmutt, the shaggy, orange, four-legged, dog-like alien wasn't Ben's favorite creature from the alien-watch, but it was the best as sneaking. Even though it was large and broad, Wildmutt's feet were soft and silent when he wanted them to be. And even though it had no eyes, Wildmutt's senses were superior, detecting heat and scent in a way far better than anything Ben could do in his boring old human form.

At the edge of the woods through which Ben, as Wildmutt, stalked, was a small lake where he and Gwen and Grandpa had fished this afternoon. Now Gwen Tennyson, his dweeb of a cousin, sat at the end of the rickety old dock, tapping away at her laptop. She wasn't even supposed to have her laptop out. Grandpa wanted them to "get the full camping experience", which is why she'd snuck off.

Ben couldn't help but snicker. In Wildmutt's form, it manifested as a deep, throaty chuckle. He could already imagine Gwen's face.

~*~

Dor focused on Jubilee as she walked down the book-lined corridors of L-Space, navigating the Blind Eternities, her chest warmed by the spark of magic that allowed her to planeswalk. She hoped her friend was in a library, or at least near a library. After several minutes of walking, she was beginning to think she'd need to rethink her path when a corridor suddenly opened on her left.

She turned and found the shelves were smooth, white metal, each book contained in a bright green cover. The corridor stretched as far as she could see. Dor knew, uncertain how, that there were over a million books in this corridor.

Curious, Dor reached out for one of the books. The cover was smooth and cool, much like the nine-pocket pages of her grimoire. The front was that same bright green with a black circle stamped in its center. The circle was contained a green hourglass symbol. Below the symbol was a single word: Vulpimancer.

She opened the book.

Vulpimancers are the sapient species of the planet Vulpin. They are a quadrupedal, canid and range from 1.8 to 4.5 meters at the shoulder. Their fur is in shades of brown to red to orange with adult males developing stripes upon their backs. They have the paws, claws, and jaws typical of most canids throughout the universe.

Vulpimancers are one of the few species of the universe without ocular organs. Instead, they have gill-like nostrils on the sides of their necks allowing them to sense a variety of stimuli including infrared and ultraviolet, which are typically outside the visible spectrum.

The book went on like that for a while and Dor knew she could have stood there for hours and read all about the fascinating species. But her shoulders tingled and her chest grew warm and she remembered she had a goal. She turned to return to her usual pathway only to find it gone, that the hallway of books with bright green covers on smooth white bookshelves stretched forever in both directions.

Dor bit her lip and cursed her lack of focus. She made sure of her bookbag on her shoulder and her wand at her hip before continuing though the corridor, hoping it took her somewhere with a library.

~*~

She stumbled from the Blind Eternities in a flash of green light, falling sideways to a dirt floor and the scent of pine. Dor scrambled to her feet and her bearings, drawing her wand. She found herself just inside the edge of a forest. A large, shaggy orange quadraped with no eyes and a massive muzzle stood at the edge of the forest facing a lake several paces on. It was a vulpimancer, the same creature she'd read about in the library in her mind.

And on a dock jutting into that lake sat a girl with her back to the vulpimancer.

The vulpimancer turned its muzzle Dor's way and growled low in its chest. Its throat gills flared and she knew it had sensed her.

"Easy," said Dor. "I don't want to hurt you."

It took a threatening step toward her, lips curling in a snarl.

Dor settled back into a waterbending stance and felt the water in the lake shift.

The vulpimancer took another step toward her, and Dor took a smooth step back, remembering how Kya had taught her to stand, taught her to move. The playing card tickled at the back of her mind.

"Easy," she said again. "Easy..."

But the vulpimancer crouched and she knew it was about to leap. She moved her arms in an abrupt sweep, left to right, even as the canid alien pounced at her. A stream of water leapt from the lake and slammed into the creature, knocking it sideways. The girl on the dock shouted in surprise and alarm. Dor spared a look for her in case there more vulpimancers, but she was alone and unharmed, staring at them in amazement. The vulpimancer got to its feet, shaking water from its matted fur.

Dor hadn't realized before, but the creature wore a collar. It was bright green and at its center was a symbol, the same symbol stamped on the cover of the book in her mind, a green hourglass inscribed in a black circle. The symbol was bulky, made of some kind of metal, and it glowed with an inner light. With its shiny metal and glowing light, it reminded Dor of the mechanical spiders in New York City. She wondered if Jubilee's Dazzler would be as effective against this machine as it had been against the spiders.

The vulpimancer growled and charged. Dor lifted her hands, wand loose in her right, and the water that had splashed into the earth lifted with them. She took a step back while thrusting her right hand forward. The vulpimancer dodged to the side but she managed to catch it a glancing blow upon its shoulder. It tumbled to its feet gracefully. The beast was strong and dexterous and Dor was certain she couldn't hold it off for long. The red-bordered fire spells flickered in the back of her mind, warmed her shoulders, but she didn't want to use them unless absolutely necessary.

Dor readied herself for the vulpimancer's next assault, lifting the water about herself in a defensive streamer. It came at her, feinting to her left. Dor lashed with the water, but missed as the creature moved to the right and came for her, jaws wide. Dor reacted, flicking her wand, and threw pink and yellow sparks at the vulpimancer's collar. When they struck, the green hourglass sparked and turned red. It emitted a series of tones in descending order and volume, then sputtered. The vulpimancer glowed with bright green light for a moment and a half, and when it faded, the canid alien was replaced by a little boy, tumbling to the forest floor The boy pushed to his feet, soaked and groaning. He was younger than Dor by a few years at least. Short and wiry, he had a shock of uncombed brown hair and bright green eyes. He wore a white and black short-sleeved shirt, and a pair of baggy, dark green pants. The device the vulpimancer had worn around its neck was duplicated on the boy's arm.

Dor looked from the boy to the girl and back again and realized the boy was the vulpimancer, that he'd been sneaking up on the girl. Dor felt fury, a burning roil in her belly that spread through her chest to her shoulders.

"Were you stalking her?" Dor demanded, pointing at the girl.

The boy looked guilty, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head. He looked up at Dor, half defiant, half mischievous. "What's it to you? Who are you anyway?"

"You naughty, naughty, little boy," said Dor. She was inclined to spank his bottom, but she didn't know him, didn't have permission, and didn't want to act as the sisters at St. Bridget's had. So she took a breath and bit her tongue.

The boy crossed his arms defiantly. "Whatever. She's just a stupid girl anyway. I was only—"

Dor's compunction evaporated. Clearly this boy needed a lesson in what a girl could do. She snagged his arm. "Just a stupid girl? Well this girl defeated you in a duel. Let me show you what else a girl is capable of." For all the boy's strength and speed as a vulpimancer, as a little boy he wasn't better than average.

"Hey, what are you doing?" the boy demanded.

Dor knelt on the forest floor, left thigh horizontal, and drew him to her.

"Whoa, wait a minute!"

Dor found it easy to bend him over her thigh. The baggy pants, she knew, would be sufficient impediment to her chastisement, but they were loose enough around the waist that, when she grabbed hold of them, she easily pulled them to his ankles.

"You can't!" he said, voice high and pleading.

The boy put hand back, but Dor took hold of his wrist without trouble. He wore a pair of bright green panties. Dor considered pulling them down, but after a moment decided not to. It felt like a step too far.

She spanked his bottom low, where it met his thighs. The boy yelped, high and shrill, like he'd never been spanked before. Dor felt sympathy for him. She had never managed to take a spanking stoically, the way Sister Mary Margaret thought she ought to. But Dor was determined to make sure he would think twice about sneaking up on little girls minding their own business.

She spanked him again.

"Okay!" he said desperately. "I get it. I get it! Please..."

She spanked him a third time, his little bottom bouncing under her palm.

"Please. I'm sorry. I..."

She spanked him a forth time and felt the sting in her palm. She knew the spanking must have turned his bottom pink, even though, from her experience, it had been mild.

"Gwen! Help me! Get Grandpa Max! I'm being attacked!"

Girlish, high-pitched giggling caught Dor's attention, and she looked to the left where the girl who'd sat on the dock stood watching, a device in the crook of her arm and a smirk on her face. Though hair was vivid auburn, she had the same green eyes as the boy over her thigh. She wondered if they were related. Brother and sister perhaps.

The girl held up a hand. "Don't stop on my account. This brat's deserved a spanking for, like, the last ten years."

"Hey!" shouted the boy. "Why don't you use your lucky powers and get this crazy girl off me?"

"I lost my powers when the charm was destroyed, you doofus," the girl, Gwen, said.

Dor looked from the red-headed girl to the boy's green panties, and back again. "You know him?"

Gwen nodded. "This is my annoying cousin, Benjamin Tennyson."

"He had assumed the shape of a vulpimancer and was stalking up behind you." Dor wondered if she'd stumbled upon a magical sort of sibling rivalry.

Gwen frowned. "Grandpa Max told you to stop using your powers to pick on me, Ben."

"I wasn't picking on you," Ben objected.

Dor spanked him and the crack of her palm on his butt bounced through the trees. "It's an extraordinarily bad idea to lie while being spanked," Dor said.

"Owie! Okay! I'm sorry for... for using my powers to pick on you."

Gwen giggled. Dor looked at her, and Gwen blushed and put her hands behind her back.

"He's your cousin," Dor said. "And you're the one he misbehaved against. I took it upon myself to spank him because I thought he was attacking a defenseless child. But you don't seem defenseless to me."

Gwen shrugged. "I can hold my own, but if you want to keep spanking that brat, I'm all for it."

"Gwen! No! Please," Ben cried out. "I'm sorry. Make her let me go."

Gwen sighed. "All right, fine." She looked at Dor. "I appreciate you coming to my defense, but you should probably let him go now."

Dor did so and stood, backing up a couple steps in case the boy turned into a vulpimancer again. Ben hopped to his feet and rubbed his bottom vigorously before blushing hard and pulling up his pants, muttering. Dor decided not to listen to hard lest she felt compelled to spank him again. It really wasn't her place and she felt a little bad.

"Don't' worry about it," Gwen said quietly while Ben groused. "Ever since he found that alien watch, he's been more full of himself than usual. He deserved a smacked bottom. I'm Gwendolyn, by the way. You can call me Gwen."

"I'm Dorothy. You can call me Dor."

"Pleasure to meet you. So... you're a mage?"

Dor nodded. "Of a sort. I've just started learning about my powers."

"Well, what are you doing out here anyway?" Ben demanded. "I thought you were a badguy, like Hex. Magic is bad news."

"Not everyone with magic is a badguy, Ben," Gwen chided.

"It's not cool to go popping out of other people's watches," Ben said, tapping the device at his wrist, giving the circular part a twist.

Dor shrugged. "I really don't know how I ended up here. I was traveling L-Space, trying to planeswalk to a friend in New York. I didn't expect to end up in the middle of the woods."

"New York?" said Gwen. "You're way off the mark. This is Colorado."

Dor nodded. She felt way off the mark. She recognized Colorado as one of the states near the middle, but the sisters hadn't put much emphasis on teaching United States geography. Plus, this world felt different than the New York City where she'd met Jubilee. The flavor was off. "I don't even think I'm on the right Earth," Dor said.

"Right Earth?" said Gwen. "You mean there are other Earths?"

Dor nodded. "I don't suppose there's a library around here somewhere?"

"Yeah," said Ben sarcastically. "Just walk that way until you find a big tree. Then turn left until you find another big tree—"

"Oh, shut up, you dweeb," said Gwen. She took Dor's hand. "Come on. I'll introduce you to Grandpa Max. He'll know what to do."

Dor let Gwen lead her through the woods. Ben hurried to catch up.

Dor looked at the brown-haired boy. His cheeks were flushed, but he didn't look angry. Instead, he looked repentant. Dor bit her lip nervously. She was about to apologize when Ben cleared his throat.

"Um, Dor? Would it be okay if we didn't tell grandpa about me sneaking up on Gwen? He already think I'm being irresponsible with the watch."

Dor looked at the device strapped to the boy's wrist. It didn't look a time-keeping device to her, but she already knew sometimes familiar words had different meanings on different planes.

"Would he spank you again?" Dor asked.

"What? No way," said Ben. "Grandpa Max would never spank us."

Dor bit her lip again, certain she'd overstepped herself now. "I'm sorry for that," she said. "It wasn't my place."

"Sure it was!" said Gwen. "I thought it was great."

"No," said Ben. "It's not that. It's just..." he cleared his throat uncomfortably. "He wants me to be more responsible. I don't want to disappoint him."

Dor patted the boy's shoulder. "If you forgive me for spanking you out of turn, then I agree your grandfather need not know about your misbehavior."

Ben grinned up at her. "Oh, that's all right. You were just trying to defend a helpless little dweeb after all."

"I'm not helpless!" Gwen said. "Dor, would you spank him again please?"

Dor chuckled. "Only if he earns it."

They walked in silence for a while, then Ben said, "I guess I did kind of deserve it."

After a few minutes more, they emerged from the woods into a clearing where a portly older man in a loud red shirt sat at a camp fire, tending a cooking meal. Though Dor had recently eaten with Minwu and Li, the food smelled wonderful.

The rest of the clearing was taken up by a large vehicle, much like the ones she'd seen in Jubilee's New York City, but twice as tall and three times as long.

"Grandpa Max, we found someone in the woods!" said Gwen.

"She popped right out of my watch," said Ben.

Both children hurried eagerly to the man who stood, brushing off pants. Dor approached shyly.

"She's a mage, grandpa," said Gwen. "Like that guy Hex, but much nicer."

"Is that right?" He stepped forward and held out a hand. "I'm Max Tennyson. These are my grandchildren."

Dor's hand was enveloped in his and he shook firmly.

"My name is Dorothy Alice Wendy. But you can call me Dor."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Dor. Now, if you don't mind my asking, how is it a mage came to emerge from an alien device?"

Dor cleared her throat. "I'm not certain on that myself. You see, sir, I can travel between planes of existence."

"She said there's more than one version of Earth, grandpa," said Gwen. "Isn't that fascinating?"

Grandpa Max nodded. "It is." He gestured at Dor. "Please, continue."

"I get the impression it's not the same for all planeswalkers, but I travel the multiverse though a concept known as L-Space."

Grandpa Max nodded. "The idea that enough words concentrated in one place can bend reality."

Dor's eyebrows shot up. "You're familiar with L-Space?"

"Only the theory."

Dor was impressed. "But I don't know why that means I should have emerged from this device rather than where I was going. I was pulled off track. I've planeswalked without L-Space before, but that was planeswalking blind. This time I was trying to go somewhere specific and was trapped off course by a bunch of books describing alien species." Dor pointed at Ben's wrist. "But that device doesn't look like a library to me."

"But maybe it is," said Gwen, tone excited.

"Uh, no," said Ben. "It's a transformation doohickey."

"But maybe, if it holds the information of ten different aliens, it's enough like a library to mess up Dor's magic."

Dor pursed her lips in thought. "There's a lot more than ten," she said mildly.

But Ben and Gwen had begun bickering and didn't hear her.

"All right, that's enough," said Grandpa Max. "Let's eat and go to bed. The nearest library is in Grand Junction, a couple hours drive from here. I suppose that's where you'll want to go?" He looked at Dor.

Dor nodded shyly.

Dinner was a peculiar affair of fish patties between soft bread with vegetables and sauces she'd never had before. The children made faces at it, but Dor thought it was delicious, if odd.

"She can stay in the camper with me, Grandpa." Gwen said.

"That sounds fine," said Grandpa Max.

Max and Ben retired to the tent, and Gwen opened the door to the vehicle, the camper she'd called it.

"There's a foldout bed in the back," said Gwen, gesturing to the rear of the vehicle where a bed had been set up. "I can take the couch." She patted a narrow bench next to a small table.

"That doesn't look quite long enough for you," Dor said.

"It's all right," Gwen said. "I've slept on it before."

"I don't want to put you out of your bed."

"It's fine, really. I owe you one for smacking that brat's bottom."

Gwen grinned.

Dor blushed.

"Besides, you can do me a favor."

"What's that?"

"Could you teach me? To do magic, I mean."

Dor shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know. I've only been at it for about six months now. As far as I know, the ability to use magic is inherent. I've had a few teachers, but only briefly and I am by no means not an expert. Do you think you have magic inherently?"

Gwen nodded excitedly. "On one of our adventures, I had this charm and it made me really lucky, but I felt something inside, you know? Something that wasn't the charm." She blushed and looked away. "Do you think that's possible?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," said Dor. "but I know where we can start."

Dor changed into her yellow Hufflepuff nightie while Gwen changed into a pair of pale blue pajamas. They sat together on the bed at the back of the vehicle, legs crossed, facing each other. 

"From what I've learned, the basics of magic are about focus, imagination, and metaphor. How's your imagination?"

"Um. Good, I think?"

Dor nodded. "All right. I want you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine a room in your mind. It can be simple. It can be complex. Either way, it must be yours." Dor took a slow deep breath. It was interesting to her that twice in the past two days she was teaching someone to focus with the room in their mind, a technique she'd only recently learned and certainly hadn't mastered. "Breath in... imagine the room... breath out... Can you see it?"

"Sort of," said Gwen.

"It doesn't have to be perfect, it's just a metaphor," said Dor. "Now imagine in that room, something that symbolizes your magic. For me, it's a book, but for you it might be something else. Perhaps a candle flame. Or a bowl of water. Or..."

"What about a cat?"

Dor hadn't expected that, but she nodded. "All right. That cat, describe it to me."

"She's a black cat with bright green eyes, like mine. She's got a long tail that crooks like a question mark. Her paws are soft, but her claws are sharp."

"Excellent. Focus on the cat. Breathe in, slowly... Look into its eyes... Let the breath... out... slowly..."

For several moments, they breathed together slowly.

"Do you feel anything?" Dor asked. She waited several breaths before opening her eyes. Gwen was lying, curled on the bed, fast asleep.

~*~

In the morning, Grandpa Max fried up the left over fish burgers and brewed coffee. Dor availed herself of the burgers but was especially grateful for the coffee. The kids had some packaged snacks they shared. Dor got the impression from their surreptitious looks they weren't supposed to have it, but she didn't say anything. On the ride down from the mountain campground Dor sat in the back with Gwen and walked her though meditation while Ben sat up front with Grandpa Max.

Despite the rumble of the vehicle and the bumps in the road, they were able to focus their mind. Gwen described her black cat with green eyes and black fur.

"And a sheen of violet," Gwen added.

Dor let herself see the room in her mind, though she didn't go their fully. She could see her grimoire upon the table, though she didn't open it. She felt the tingle along her shoulders and the warmth in her chest, though she did not pull at her magic.

"Do you feel anything?" Dor asked. "For me it's a sort of tingle."

"It's like a word," said Gwen. "A word I can't quite remember, just on the tip of my tongue. Like if I'm trying to write an essay... Sometimes if I can go back to the beginning and try again, I can trick my brain into remembering. But It's just not... I can't quite..."

They kept at it for an hour or so before Gwen confessed she couldn't concentrate any more.

"I almost had it," she said, despondent.

"It's okay," said Dor. "A friend of mine, my first teacher, she told me I had to learn to control my magic, otherwise it would spill from me accidently. Which is what happened. You are already learning, which means you're way ahead of me."

Gwen smiled.

Dor admired the view as they drove down from the pine-tree covered mountains, through canyons alongside a rushing river, and into a high scrubby desert. The canyons were tall and craggy with trees clinging here and there, the stratified rock blue and grey and red. The desert was dusty brown with dots of sage in green, yellow, and purple. From a distance, the town was a smudge of emerald hugging the shining ribbon of a river.

~*~

Grandpa Max found a sidestreet to park his large vehicle and they walked the block and a half to the Grand Junction central library.

"We're just dropping Dor off, right?" said Ben. "We're not actually going to go in the library? It's summer break!"

"You don't like libraries?" said Dor.

Ben rolled his eyes.

"I can hardly believe he's my cousin," said Gwen.

"Come on, Ben, it won't hurt to look around. Besides, I want to make sure Dorothy gets off safely," Grandpa Max said.

"I appreciate that, but I'm sure everything will be fine," said Dor. Even so, she blushed warmly to hear the concern in his tone. They'd just met, but she wished he was her grandfather.

On a grassy strip, in the shade of a large tree, a woman sat upon a spread blanket with a small child, enjoying a picnic. Behind them, the library was a sprawling, two story building with tall windows, a clock tower, and a sculpture at the entry that spun in the gentle desert breeze.

Dor was distracted by the furtive movement a young man in a black, hooded shirt approaching the mother and child. Something about the way he moved, the way he held his shoulders, the way he shifted his eyes, made her think he was up to no good. And a few moments later when he dashed up to the woman and snatched a bag from beside her, Dor knew she'd been right.

The woman gasped, startled.

"Hey, he just..." Dor said.

"I got it!" shouted Ben. He tapped at his device and twisted a dial; a circular section of the device popped up like a telescope. "Come on, XLR8, it's hero time!" He slammed the device with his other hand. In an explosion of green light, the untidy boy disappeared and in his place stood a tall crystalline golem. It was broad-shouldered, sharp-edged, and wore a black bodysuit that left its arms bare, with the green hourglass symbol upon its chest. The being was composed entirely of teal-colored crystal with a fin-like protrusion from the back of its head.

Ben, now a crystalline golem, looked down at himself and shrugged. "I can work with this."

The young man in the black hood sprinted away from the woman, bag tucked under his arm, the woman shouting after him, the child sobbing. But in his haste to get away, the thief hadn't realized he was charging almost right at a large, crystalline golem.

"Why does he call this one 'Accelerate'?" Dor asked.

Gwen snickered. "This one's Diamondhead. Ben doesn't know how to use that thing properly. He's always getting the wrong alien."

"Whatever, guys. I can handle this," said Diamondhead. He pointed at the young thief, just now noticing them. "Drop it!" Diamondhead shouted.

The thief, not much older than a boy really, skidded to a stop so fast he landed hard on his backside.

The arm Diamondhead used to point at the thief shifted and grew with a sound like a marble on glass. In moments, his hand was replaced with a long crystalline blade.

The sound sent a shiver down Dor's spine and across her shoulders and a faint pulsing buzz at the base of her skull. Dor closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to lose that feeling, trying to encourage it. In her mind's eye she saw her grimoire sitting closed on the table. And she saw a white sphere with an azure sheen upon the brown leather. She reached for it and it fell into her hand like a ripe pear. It was smooth and cool and heavy and in the next moment the sphere resolved itself into a playing card.

 

Ben's Petrosapien 2W

Elemental Creature – Earth Golem

W: This gets first strike until end of turn.

U: This gets hexproof until end of turn.

2/5

 

"Leave the purse and get out of here," said Diamondhead.

Dor blinked and watched as the young thief did as he was told, running pell-mell away from the alien form Ben called Diamondhead.

In a muted flash of green light, Ben transformed back to his human form. He planted his fists on his hips and turned to face them. "How about that? I just stopped a purse snatcher."

Grandpa Max nodded. "No one got hurt and no buildings were set on fire. That was well done, Ben."

Dor had to agree. The boy had done well.

Ben took the purse back to the woman, who looked equal parts grateful and nonplussed.

"Hey, what's that?" said Gwen?

Dor looked at the girl and saw she was pointing at Dor's hand. When she looked, she found the playing card in her mind was held in her fingers. It was just like when she'd held Twilight's Blink after returning to St. Bridget's from Equestria. She held it up to look at it. It showed Benjamin Tennyson in his Diamondhead form, fists on hips, chest forward, expression proud. Like the others, it felt thicker and heavier than it was. It felt smooth, like glass, and tasted of crystal.

"It's a spell," said Dor.

"A spell to do what? Transform like Ben?'

"I don't think so," said Dor. "I haven't seen one quite like this before."

"May I..." Gwen held out her hand shyly.

"Certainly." Dor handed the card over.

When she took it, Gwen shivered. "I can feel... something. It's not quite right. I mean, it's not quite right for me. It's almost like a sound, just a bit to low to be heard."

She handed it back to Dor and when Dor took it, the card dissolved into sparkles of white light with hints of blue.

"Well, now the heroics are out of the way, shall we go inside?" said Grandpa Max.

They found a quiet corner in the basement of the library.

"Travel safe," said Gwen.

"Yeah, good luck," said Ben.

Grandpa Max gave her a firm nod.

Dor approached a bookshelf,put her hand on it, and felt the spark of warmth at her chest. The books parted before her as though by magic.


	3. Xavier's Institute, Part 1

Jubilee understood that her first mission as an X-Man was going to be simple and safe. She understood they wouldn't send her up against the Brotherhood of Mutants when she was just fourteen years old. She even agreed it was safer, more responsible, to keep junior members on low risk missions. Even so, she couldn't help but be disappointed at how boring this mission was.

Wandering through an old office building that might have, at one point, been a Weapon X facility, was mind-numbing. All they'd found so far was a bunch of empty computer desks, abandoned cords, bits of trash, and an unsolved rubiks cube.

Squirrel Girl had claimed the rubiks cube.

They were looking for anything left behind. A stray USB drive, or an old floppy disk, or maybe even a hardcopy of something printed on paper. But so far, there'd been no luck. The building was so boring, Jean had let them split up. Squirrel Girl and Shadowcat had taken the offices on the left while Jubilee had taken the offices on the right.

Jean Grey was their field captain on this so-called mission and Jubilee could feel her telepathic touch at the back of her mind. Jean was good about not invading privacy with her telepathic gifts, but Jubilee knew if she needed her fellow junior X-Men, all she had to do was think it.

Jubilee checked the underside of every desk of the cubical farm, but found nothing that could hold data. No computer towers, no thumb drives. Crammed in one corner of the room was a narrow closest which Jubilee fully expected to find empty but for half a broom handle, but when she opened the door she found it crammed with three ring binders. Eyes going wide, she pulled one from the shelf and found it full of paper printed with rows of numbers. Accounting reports maybe. Jubilee had no idea whether or not accounting reports would be any use to the X-Men, but they'd been told to find any information, no matter how mundane. The Professor had friends in legal circles who could make life difficult for Weapon X if they could only find proof of their existence.

She was about to call to Jean with her thoughts when the carefully shelved binders rippled and parted and a girl stumbled through.

~*~

Dor squeezed through the narrow corridor in her mind, lined with thick, smooth-spined books of a kind she was unfamiliar, wondering what kind of library she'd find herself in. When it finally opened up, it was a surprise and she nearly fell, but a friendly hand caught her.

Dor smiled when she saw it was Jubilee.

The other girl was dressed in the same thick bodysuit Scott and Jean had worn when they'd rescued them from the mechanical spiders in New York City. The encircled X at her left breast was pink, as was the detailing at her shoulders and collar. She wore a bright yellow jacket over her uniform and a pair of bright pink spectacles. Dor wasn't sure, but she'd thought Jubilee had grown taller since last she'd see her.

Jubilee pushed her spectacles up on her head. She blinked at Dor several times before breaking into a wide grin. "I never thought I'd see you again. I thought that other girl had taken you away forever."

"Nope. I got rid of her. Sort of."

"You can tell me all about when we get back to the Institute," said Jubilee. "Come on. I want to introduce you to the others."

"What is this place?" said Dor, as Jubilee led her though the room.

"We think it's an old Weapon X facility. We're looking for anything they might have left behind. These binders are the first thing we found. That makes this mission doubly successful." She winked at Dor. "Hey guys!" Jubilee called once they reached the hallway. "I found someone and something."

"Is it someone to fight?" came a pugnacious voice from down the hallway.

"I thought this facility was empty," said another, milder voice.

Dor looked down the hallway to find a pair of girls coming toward them. One was slim with brunette hair pulled back in a simple tail. The other was short but thick with broad shoulders and chubby cheeks. Further, she had a pair of tall, furry ears poking out from her rusty brown hair, and a thick squirrel's tail poofing out from her backside. Both wore the same black bodysuit Jubilee did. The girl with the tail had green detailing, while the slimmer girl had yellow. 

"Stand down, Squirrel Girl," said Jubilee. "This is my friend, Dor. I met her when we were running away from the sentinels a few months ago. She was kidnapped by an interdimensional pyrokinetic. But she's back!"

"Aw man," said Squirrel Girl, slapping her fist into one hand. "I was hoping we'd find someone to punch."

"This is an important mission, even if we don't fight anyone." The new voice came from behind and Dor turned to find Jean Grey just as she remembered her, tall and beautiful with wavy auburn hair Dor could only aspire to, bright green eyes, and a poised expression. Her black uniform was detailed in blue.

"Dorothy. It's good to see you again. Are you being pursued?"

Dor shook her head. "I was kind of hoping you all could help me with something, but it's not dire. And you look like you're busy."

"Also," said Jubilee, "I found some binders. They look like accounting reports, so..." She shrugged.

"Well done, Jubilee," said Jean, smiling.

"Great," said Squirrel Girl. "Binders."

"At least I found something," said Jubilee, defensive.

Dor frowned at Squirrel Girl, but the other girl grinned. "We'll show those Weapon X fools whose boss. By stealing the accounting binders!" And she struck a foolish pose.

Shadowcat and Jubilee giggled.

Jean smiled. "Every little bit helps. It's at least as important to fight Weapon X legislatively as it is physically." Jean put her hands to her forehead and closed her eyes. "Storm. We're done searching the building. We've found some documents and a friendly. Is the Blackbird ready?"

Between the five of them and some abandoned cardboard boxes, they managed to get all the binders downstairs and to the front door in one trip. The sky was overcast and Dor could smell rain on the air. A blacktop courtyard spread from the front door to a ten foot tall wire fence with a wide opening for allowing vehicles. Beyond spread a city with a mass of clumped towers shrouded in the mist of coming rain and distance. Dor didn't know if this was New York City or some other massive municipality of the far flung future.

"Storm says she'll be here in two minutes," said Jean.

Dor's attention was caught by a man rounding a corner in the distance. He had a lean, hard look to him, with hair shorn short. He wore a dark purple, long-sleeved shirt under a dark harness and wide belt. His pants were dark and worn. He picked up the pace when he saw Dor looking at him, loping with an easy grace.

"Um, is Storm a tall man in a purple shirt?" Dor asked.

Jean looked from the sky to Dor. "What?"

Dor pointed and the junior X-Men girls looked to see the man hurrying toward them.

Jean's eyes went wide. She took several steps toward the man. "All of you stay behind me." She put one hand to her head and thrust the other at the man. "Stop where you are."

The man ignored her warning. He was nearly to the fence. At the pace he'd set he would be upon them soon. Jean made a fist of her hand and jerked it to the left. A panel of fences set upon wheels slid across the opening in the fence. The man leapt, clearing the fence like it was nothing. 

Dor took a step back, shoulders tingling, and drew her wand. Next to her, Jubilee took her hand, squeezing tight. Dor's cheeks warmed and her grimoire opened in her mind.

Jean took another step forward.

The man smiled without humor and spread his hands, as though to show he was no threat. "Easy, ladies. My employers simply want to talk."

Movement on the left caught Dor's attention and she looked to find more men approaching from the other side, all dressed in dark uniforms and helmets. They did not leap the fence, but they began cutting through the wire.

"More on our right," Squirrel Girl said, voice high.

"Storm's almost here," said Jean. "Just stay together."

Jubilee squeezed Dor's hand tighter. Sparks flickered along her fingers.

"So, you'll come quietly, yes?" said the man.

Jean thrust her hand at him and he stumbled back several steps.

When he regained his feet, he was smiling. "Excellent." In a quick, practiced movement, he drew a broad bladed knife from the harness on his chest.

Dor reacted. "Expelliarmus." She flicked her wand and dart of light struck the man, knocking the knife from his hand.

He looked stunned at first, then his smile broadened. He loped toward Jean in a strange sort of weaving pattern. Jean took a defensive stance but struck with a balled fist. The air rippled as her telekinetic strike moved the air, but the man dodged aside and darted in, sweeping low and taking Jean's feet out from under her. He was fast and agile and skilled.

Squirrel Girl pounced, hackles bristly, wrapping her arms around the man's neck, but he slipped and tumbled and tossed the girl through the air to the blacktop where she tumbled and yelped. The man looked up at Dor and Jubilee from his crouched position.

Jubilee squeezed Dor's hand tighter and the warmth in Dor's cheeks spread through her, growing. She felt like warm wax, melting from within, like clay to be sculpted, like her body had become light.

The gold-bordered Gems' Fusion flickered through her mind.

 

Gems' Fusion URW

Tribal Sorcery – Gem

Exile two target creatures you control. If you do, create an X/Y creature token where X is the sum of the exiled creatures' power and Y the sum of their toughness. It has all colors, types, and rules text of the exiled creatures. When this token leaves the battlefield, return the exiled cards to the battlefield under their owner's control.

 

She only had a moment, but she took it. She took it to take a breath and know herself. She was different than ever she'd been. Taller, fuller, stronger. Photokinetic sparks danced along her skin. Spells shuffled through her mind. She stretched one pair of arms over her head and cupped her hands, feeling the sparks dance between her palms. She stretched her second pair of arms to the side and felt the light of her body manifest in her grip as a pair of wands: pine, unicorn hair, quite flexible. She opened all four of her eyes as wide as they would go, peering through the pink glass of her shades. The black bodysuit of the X-Men uniform held her new body like it was tailored to her.

The man in the purple shirt backed up several steps, eyes wide.

It began to rain.

The man attacked in a swirling series of kicks, leaping and spinning with adeptness that surpassed normal skill. The woman, not quite Dor, not quite Jubilee, moved as Kya had taught her, and pulled the rain from the air around her, moving her arms in broad sweeps, batting aside the man's kicks with streamers of water. With her upper arms, the flung whistling sparks at the man, impressed by his ability to weave and duck. His skill would soon overwhelm her powers. She needed to do something different.

With a breath and a thought, she teleported behind him in a crack of magic and purple sparkles.

The man intuited her position and swung about with a kick aimed high. It was far off the mark, and she flung another handful of sparks at the man, waiting for him to dodge aside, then flicked one of her wands. A lash of sparking flame sprung forth and caught him around the ankle. He shouted in stunned pain.

She grinned. It felt good to win.

A great whirring pressure pushed at her back and she stumbled forward, losing her grip on her spells. The streamers of water, sparks of light, and lash of fire all dissolved into mana and flickered away.

"Everyone on the Blackbird!" Jean Grey's mental connection to the back of Jubilee's mind persisted, shouting both vocally and mentally.

Part of her knew she should get on the plane, that it was time to escape, but another part of her wanted to defeat him, to show him he couldn't mess with them, that they weren't afraid. She knew escape was a simple sprint behind her. She could see the men in black tactical armor coming through the fence on the other side of her adversary.

The woman settled into a new waterbending stance as the man got to his feet.

"Get on the plane, now!"

A whipping gale burst from behind and above. And a woman in the black armored uniform of the X-Men, pure white hair a short tuft of mohawk, cape billowing, soared overhead. Lightning flashed around her, striking at the men in tactical armor coming through the fence. Whirlwinds danced at her beck, driving the men back.

Her shoulders tingled and her mind filled.

A shot rang out.

The woman who was half Dorothy, half Jubilation, looked down from the fury of Storm to the man in the purple shirt. He had a pistol aimed at her, still smoking, a grin of triumph tugging at the stubble on his chin. With a flick of one wand, she disarmed him, with the flick of the other she sent him sprawling with a fresh ribbon of water pulled from the rain. She looked down at her chest to where she should have felt pain, but there was nothing.

"Jean said get on the plane."

To her left stood Katherine Pryde, the Shadowcat, hand on her arm, and the woman realized Shadowcat had saved her life, made her intangible, so the bullet passed straight through her.

"Right." She let Shadowcat keep a hand on her so they would remain intangible as they turned toward the large black jet, the Blackbird. It's bay door was open, allowing them to hurry aboard. The plane lifted off before they were fully aboard.

Dor felt her chest pounding, panic at her shoulders. They'd nearly been killed.

Jubilee took a deep breath, trying to calm them, but...

In a flash of light, the fusion ended and the girls tumbled to the floor of the plane.

"On your feet, hero," said Squirrel Girl, pulling Dor off her backside and to a chair against one wall of the aircraft. She pushed Dor into the chair. "Hold still, I'll strap you in." A thick heavy harness was buckled over her chest. Dor blinked, dazed. She had been someone else. Someone powerful. Someone confident. It had felt good and she wanted to do it again. But she knew they'd disobeyed Jean Grey, their field captain, and there would be a price to pay for that. She looked to the other side of the aircraft's cabin to where Jubilee was similarly strapped in by Shadowcat. Jubilee met her gaze with a rueful grin.

Storm, the tall, dark-skinned, white-mohawked powerhouse of the X-Men flew into the cabin of the Blackbird with a gust of wind, eyes clouded and sparking. She strode to the head of the cockpit where Jean sat at the controls. The woman spared a glance for Dor, expression firm. Dor looked away, blushing.

~*~

At Xavier's Institute, Jubilee, Shadowcat, and Squirrel Girl showed her through the halls of the lower levels, which were austere polished metal. They lead her to a large, tiled, shower room where they stripped off their armored uniforms and hung them in narrow, metal wardrobes before turning on a communal shower.

The shower was simple and utilitarian. It's wasn't as magical as the bathrooms at Hogwarts, but it was far better than anything Dor experienced at St. Bridget's.

None of them seemed embarrassed to shower together, so Dor swallowed her own embarrassment and undressed. She joined them in the tiled cubicle, shyly curious. She'd seen Isabel, Sandra, and Aelf naked at Hogwarts, Isabel especially, but this was more blatant. Jubilee was slim and boyish. Shadowcat was thin but curvy. Squirrel Girl was thick and chubby, her tail hanging heavy with water in moments. She had a thick tuft of hair at her loins that tapered in a thin line to just below her belly button. Shadow at had a few brunette curls. Jubilee was as smooth and hairless as Dor. Dor tried not to let her eyes linger.

"There's an extra bed in our suite," said Jubilee over the pounding water. "You can stay with us tonight. If the Professor says it's okay, that is. But I don't see why not, you helped us with a successful mission."

"Was it?" asked Dor. "Did we get the books?"

"Yup," said Squirrel Girl. She worked shampoo from a wall mounted dispenser into the fur of her tail vigorously. "Shadowcat comes through again. She's got a head on her shoulders, that one."

Shadowcat blushed. "I just grabbed the boxes and phased them onto the Blackbird. You two are the real heroes, fighting off the mercenary."

"What was that anyway?" said Squirrel Girl. "Is that your power, to combine forms with other mutants?"

Dor shook her head. "It's a spell. I learned it on another Earth."

"What?" said Squirrel Girl, planting her fists on her soapy hips.

"You can travel the multiverse?" said Shadowcat.

"She'll tell you all about it when we're upstairs," said Jubilee. She looked at Dor. "Won't you? I really wanna know what's happened since that rooftop."

Dor nodded. "Of course.

She steam from the shower filled their little cubicle, making it warm and close and comfortable. When they were done, Jubilee found them some towels, three for Squirrel Girl, and they all got dressed. The others dressed in casual clothes, denim pants and t-shirts. Shadowcat's was black with a yellow X inscribed in a circle on her left breast. It reminded Dor of a heraldic symbol.

Dor elected to wear her beige button up and black skirt from her magical laundry bag.

They led Dor to the upper floors, which were dark, polished wood and richly appointed. Shadowcat, Squirrel Girl, and Jubilee shared a suite on the third floor of the dormitories at Xavier's Institute for the Gifted. Each bedroom had two beds, two chest of drawers, and two desks, and the rooms were connected by a shared washroom.

Once they were settled in, Dor told her story from the beginning, Elmira Gulch arriving at St. Bridget's Orphanage. When she was finished she looked at Jubilee.

"Do you suppose we're in trouble with Jean?"

"What for?" said Squirrel Girl. "You guys kicked ass!"

"We kind of, deliberately, disobeyed orders," said Jubilee.

"Oh," said Squirrel Girl in sympathy, rubbing the backside of her denim shorts.

Not long after, a knock at their door heralded the entry of Jean Grey. She'd changed from her uniform into a pair of denim pants and a long-sleeved blue blouse. Her long, auburn hair was damp and pulled into a messy pony tail, and even that looked good.

"Did Storm send you to spank us?" Jubilee asked.

Dor blushed, both at the mention of spanking at the other girl's frankness.

Jean put her hands behind her back. "She sent me to make sure you three remembered to write your accounting of the mission."

"Oh yeah, forgot about that part," Squirrel Girl groused.

"Writing an accurate report is important," Shadowcat said.

Jean looked at Dor. "And she sent me to tell you the Professor says you're welcome to stay. I told him about our first meeting and today and both he and Storm are impressed with your loyalty to a friend you've only barely met."

Dor blushed harder.

Jean took a deep breath. "As to your spanking," she hesitated and the room filled with tension. Jean cleared her throat. "Storm left it up to me, and I'm leaving it up to you."

Jubilee sighed gustily. "Well, shit." She looked at Dor. "I guess we're getting spanked."

Dor nodded. She couldn't say they didn't deserve it. Jean had been clear about falling back and they'd definitely disobeyed. Even though they had been sharing the body of a powerful, confident woman, they should have followed Jean's instruction.

Jean took a deep breath, like she was about to object, but then she nodded. She stepped back, out of the doorway and to the side, making way for them.

Dor stood, hands folded at her waist.

"Good luck," said Squirrel Girl thickly.

Shadowcat nodded.

Jubilee led Dor out of them room and down the hall where she waited for Jean, who opened the door on a small study. There was a desk with a mechanical device and a lit screen, a bookshelf packed with books, and a chair.

Jean entered and picked up her straight-backed, armless chair, setting it in the center of her little study. It looked sturdy, a good spanking chair. Dor wondered how many of the other girls at the Institute had been spanked with the help of this chair. She wondered how many more would be. She couldn't help but be reminded of the stout chair Sister Mary Margaret had used as her spanking chair. But Jean was nothing like Sister Mary Margaret. Like Minwu, Jean Grey was like a loving sister and, though Dor wasn't looking forward to her impending spanking, she didn't fear it either.

Jean sat. "Dorothy. You're not part of the X-Men. Our disciplinary methods probably aren't what you're used to..."

Dor shook her head. "I heard your instruction just as well as Jubilee. We both chose to disobey. If she deserves a spanking, so do I."

Jean nodded. "Then I take it neither of you needs to be scolded on why it's important to follow orders?"

Both shook their heads.

"Very well. Jubilee..."

Jubilee stepped forward and unbuttoned her denim shorts. She pushed them to her knees where they fell to her ankles and she could step out of them. She was such a fiery personality, Dor was surprised to realize how small she was. Standing in a worn old t-shirt and bright pink panties, X-Men X prominent upon the seat, she looked awfully small.

Dor sniffled, fighting back preemptive tears.

Jubilee went to Jean and bent over the tall girl's lap.

Jean didn't waste time. She pulled Jubilee's panties down, baring her slim bottom and held her securely around the waist. She slapped her hand against Jubilee's bare bottom and Dor was surprised by how mild it seemed. She'd expected Jean to be as proficient a spanker as Minwu. But as the auburn haired girl continued, Dor realized Jean's spanking was faster than it was hard, that the quick, sharp spanks were just as effective at setting a bottom afire. She watched as Jubilee squirmed and whimpered then kicked and groaned, then bucked and cried, her bottom a bright scarlet.

When Jean stopped, Jubilee hopped to her feet and rubbed her bottom vigorously, tears streaming down her face. She went to a corner without being told and stood there, crying.

Before Jean could tell her to, Dor wiped the tears she'd already shed from her cheeks and approached. She unzipped her beige skirt and let it fall to her feet, kicking it aside, and lay over Jean's lap. Jean didn't have a broad lap, but still Dor found that, once her palms were flat on the floor, her tippy toes barely touched the other side. Her damp auburn braids crumpled to the floor around her head. Jean's grip on her waist was firm. Her fingers at the waist of her panties were gentle.

When her bottom was bare, Dor's tears flowed freely. She didn't try to stop them.

The first several spanks were a stinging flurry. Dor tensed and tried not to cry out, tried not to squirm. She was successful for a while, but soon the sting built to a burn and Dor knew she'd be no better at taking a spanking from Jean than she had from Sister Mary Margaret or Minwu or Professor Sparkle. Soon she squirmed and cried under Jean's fiery palm.

When it was over, Jean hugged them both and they redressed. Jubilee took Dor's hand as they went back down the hall to her room. Squirrel Girl and Shadowcat were waiting for them and there was another round of hugging.

"Jean's great," said Squirrel Girl. "I love her like she were my own big sister. But she's a mean spanker."

"No she's not," Dor said. Her tone was harsher than she'd meant. The other girls looked at her askance. "I'm sorry. I just... At the orphanage, Sister Mary Margaret was a mean spanker. She spanked for no reason and she never hugged me afterward. Jean is lovely."

"Oh," said Squirrel Girl. "I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that she's, uh, really good at it. I'm sorry, Dor."

Dor shook her head. "I misunderstood."

Shadowcat hugged her again and rubbed her back. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. Sounds awful."

Squirrel Girl cleared her throat. "Our little Kitty's never been spanked."

"That's not true," Shadowcat said, tone defensive.

Jubilee and Squirrel Girl looked at her in stunned silence.

Shadowcat blushed and hunched her shoulders.

After several moments when no one said anything, Dor cleared her throat. "Do... do you want to share the story?"

Shadowcat grinned. "A few months ago, I... I might have used my powers to sneak into Kurt's room and throw all his underwear in the pool."

Jubilee's eyes went wide.

Squirrel Girl snorted. "I'd wondered who'd done that!"

"It was revenge for his teleporting into the changing room that time. Remember?"

Squirrel girl nodded. "I heard Cyc lit his butt up good for that one."

Shadowcat nodded. "Jean figured out it was me and I couldn't lie to her." She sighed. "So she spanked me, pulled down my panties and everything. I totally deserved it, but it was totally worth it."

They chatted into the evening and until it grew late and they decided to turn in. Shadowcat and Squirrel Girl went through the shared bathroom to their own bedroom. Dor and Jubilee changed into their nighties. Dor sneaked a peak at Jubilee and blushed. Lying in bed, bottom warm, sleep claimed her quickly.


	4. Xavier's Institute, Part 2

Dor dreamed of the room in her mind.

A green bound book with the black and green hourglass symbol of Ben Tennyson’s alien device sat on the table in the room in her mind. Under the symbol was a single word: Petrosapien. It was the alien form Ben called Diamondhead, the same Dor now had access to in her grimoire.

 

Petrosapiens are a species of silicon-based lifeforms from the planet Petropia. There are two subspecies: the surface Petrosapiens and their Subsapien ancestors. Both species are distantly related to the Antrosapiens.

Petrosapiens are composed of a diamond-like material ranging in color from blue to green. They are, on average, 2 meters tall. They have four digits on their hands and none on their feet. Surface Petrosapiens are lean and thin, with square bodies and limbs. Subsapiens, are large with wide bodies with thick limbs. Some Subsapiens have crystal growths on their foreheads.

 

Dor could have sat and read about petrosapiens for hours on end. Perhaps she did. But in the way of dreams, after several pages, Dor found the green book had become her grimoire. The playing cards in their translucent pockets had shifted again. A new gold-bordered playing card had joined Gems’ Fusion.

 

Storm’s Salvo UUR

Tribal Sorcery – Mutant Instant

Choose one or both:

· This deals 3 damage to any target.

· Return target creature or artifact to its owner’s hand.

 

In the art, Storm hovered against an overcast sky, cape abillow, mohawk windblown, eyes like ice and lightning at her fingertips. She was proud and powerful and Dor remembered what that felt like. She wanted to feel that way again. The tingle of magic along her shoulders intensified. The gold-bordered card was in her fingers, smooth and cool, buzzing like lightning. She knew all it would take was for her to channel her power down her arm and through the card and she could manifest the power of Storm.

“Please don’t do that, Dorothy.”

Dor blinked, casting the vestiges of the dream from her. She sat in the room in her mind, Storm’s Salvo in hand. She’d been about to cast the spell. She could feel herself, lying still and quiet in the extra bed in Jubilee’s room and realized how disastrous it would have been to send wind and lightning about the small space.

“There we are. Thank you for waking up.”

Dor looked from the card to a man sitting across from her at the table in the room in her mind. He was an older gentleman with a smooth pate and a patient smile.

“You’re the Professor, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “Charles Xavier. Pleasure to meet you, Dorothy.”

“Thank you for letting me stay in your home, sir.”

“Certainly. And thank you for making sure my junior X-Men were unharmed today.”

Dor blushed. Surely the Professor knew Jean had spanked them this evening for disobeying orders. And yet he praised her. It was an interesting dichotomy, and not unwelcome.

“I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion,” the Professor continued. “I don’t lightly enter others’ minds.”

“Not at all,” said Dor. “I don’t like casting spells accidently.”

“I’ll let you get back to sleep then. Would you like me to help you on your way?”

“You can do that? Yes, sir, that’d be lovely. But, may I ask a favor first?”

The Professor looked surprised, but nodded. “Very well.”

“I’ve, uh, inherited a trove of stolen artifacts and I want to return them. But I don’t know which version of which world they belong to. A friend of mine on another world suggested a telepath might help figure out how to read these cards.” She opened her grimoire to the pages of artifacts, full art, no text but for their titles, and pushed the book toward him.

The Professor’s expression turned quizzical. “Isn’t this a fascinating puzzle…” He spent several moments that might have been minutes, that might have been longer, carefully turning the pages with his slender-fingered hands. After a time, he looked at her. “Dorothy. I’d like to think on this for a time, if I may.”

“Of course,” said Dor. “Thank you.”

He smiled at her gently, the way she imagined a kind grandfather might, and Dor slipped back through the books in her mind, dreaming of carefully organized shelves in dim hallways and quiet whispers.

~*~

For the first thirteen years of her life, Dor had dreamed of impossible people in impossible places doing impossible things. But since tumbling off the roof at St. Bridget’s and slipping through the Blind Eternities, those dreams had stopped. When she woke in the morning, Jubilee breathing gently in her bed nearby, Dor remembered a dream of a long library in a dark castle with a dark master. The memory made her shiver when she woke, laying still and quite in her borrowed bed.

She slipped from bed, and made her way to the shared bathroom. Dor got undressed and checked her backside in the mirror. It was unblemished, no sign of spanking. She took a quick, hot shower and dried off with a towel stacked on the counter. When she emerged, Jubilee was sitting up in bed, a small, tablet like device in her hands.

Jubilee looked up at Dor. “Oh, good. I need to get in there before Squirrel Girl…”

But the other entrance to the bathroom opened and the chubby girl with the furry pointed ears and big furry tail entered. Her eyes were squinty and her cheeks puffy and she looked cranky. “Mornin’,” she growled, before closing the door firmly and clicking the lock.

Jubilee sighed. “Guess I’ll get my shower after breakfast.”

They got dressed, Dor from her magical laundry bag, Jubilee from her chest of drawers. Jubilee selected a pair of bright green panties, the X inscribed circle prominent upon the seat. Dor felt a twinge of jealousy.

It seemed everywhere she went, people had symbols to identify them. The Hufflepuffs’ badger. Ben Tennyson’s green hourglass. The X-Men’s simple X. Twilight Sparkle had her symbol emblazoned upon her flank. Dor had felt welcomed by Minwu, the Changs, the Hufflepuffs, and Jubilee, but it was a stark reminder she had no family name, no symbol of her own.

“Jubilee, can I ask, did the Institute provide your clothes?”

“Sure,” said Jubilee. “I was running away, remember? I had nothing. And the sentinels wrecked my room. The Bookcliffs didn’t want anything to do with me after that. So everything I’ve got, the Professor’s given me. Even my undies.” She slapped her own bottom playfully. “But that’s all right. They’re great here, Dor. Honestly. Even though there are occasional spankings.”

Dor nodded.

“Hey, do you have enough clothes?” Jubilee asked, concerned. “I’ll bet they’ve got some your size. We can ask Jean. She took me to a big sort of closet when I first arrived.”

After some rigmarole of getting ready for the day, the girls took Dor down to the dining hall. Nothing could compare to the splendor of Hogwarts but the mansion in which Xavier’s Institute was housed was well-appointed by the standards of Dor’s time. In fact, though this Earth was far in the future from hers, she got the impression the mansion dated back to her time if not earlier.

The dining hall was utilitarian, with long, plain tables and a large kitchen from which they could scoop food, already cooked, onto their plates. Dor selected scrambled eggs and crispy bacon and flat cakes with syrup. She got a large mug and filled it with coffee from a steaming pot.

They found their way to a table where Jubilee introduced her to a slew of other junior X-Men. There was Bobby Drake, Iceman, a handsome blond boy with warm blue eyes. Betsy Braddock, Psylock, a pale girl with tilted eyes and long, dark purple hair. Remy LeBeau, Gambit, a tall, charming boy with black and red eyes. Rhane Sinclare, Wolfsbane, a shaggy girl with brown hair and pronounced canines. And on it went: Nightcrawler and Rogue and Colossus and Siryn, and after a while Dor had a hard time keeping them all straight.

And each of them made her feel welcome.

They shook her hand or patted her back or smiled good-naturedly. Some were rowdy, some shy, some kind, some aloof, but none made her uncomfortable or looked down on her. They all assumed she was the newest addition to the X-Men. It was not unlike being welcomed into the Hufflepuffs or invited to a dueling club. She mentally chided herself for having felt like she didn’t belong.

They had finished breakfast and deposited their plates in the kitchen when Jean and Scott approached them. Even out of uniform, Scott wore a pair of ruby red spectacles. Dor wondered if it was part of his being a mutant. No mutant she’d met so far seemed to have anything in common other than the label.

Scott smiled and shook her hand. “Nice job yesterday. If you stick around this time, we’ll teach you how to follow orders.”

Dor smiled shyly.

“Dorothy, the Professor asked me to speak with you,” said Jean. “He has assigned me to help you with your mental puzzle. He says it’ll be good practice for me. But before that, I’m to give you a tour of the Institute.”

A chime rang through the halls and those not already wrapping up their breakfast hurried to do so. Scott clapped his hands and chivied the other students good-naturedly. When everyone was on their way, Scott turned to Jean.

“Are we still on for the Danger Room this afternoon?” He sounded hopeful.

Jean blushed and nodded. “It will depend on how my morning with Dorothy goes, but I’m planning on it, yes.”

Scott smiled, his own cheeks coloring faintly. “Good. Excellent. See you there.”

When Scott was gone, Dor grinned at Jean. Jean winked at her.

Jean lead Dor through the expansive hallways of the mansion while explaining that Professor Charles Xavier had founded the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youth to help young mutants learn to control their gifts and as refuge against a world that viewed mutants with, at best, suspicion. She explained that, at 16 years old, she and Scott were the eldest of the students and had been elected student co-presidents. She showed her through the dormitory wings and the classrooms. Though the teachers were all busy, Jean pointed out Angel, a fair-haired man with great white wings who taught Mathematics and Business; Beast, a hulking, blue-furred man who taught Science; Logan, a gruff man who taught Physical Education and Combat Basics; and Storm, who taught Global Studies.

Storm looked up as the girls peered into her classroom. In dark slacks and a pale grey blazer, she looked far less intimidating than she had in battle. She even gave them a small smile.

Next, Jean showed Dor to a large supply closet. “Jubilee said you might not have enough clothes,” she explained. Jean helped Dor pick through the stacks of clothing. The t-shirts and skirts were easy, but finding the right kind of denim pants, bluejeans Jean called them, required several rounds of trying them on. Jean also helped her pick out a variety of brassieres, some cute and lacey, some plain and utilitarian, some firm and snug. Dor hadn’t known such a variety existed. Finally there were the panties in all shades of colors, each with the circle-inscribed X either subtly upon their elastic waistbands or prominent upon their seats. Dor chose some of each in purple.

Dor was embarrassed to change in front of the tall girl. Jean was extraordinarily pretty and Dor felt very plain next to her. She changed shyly as Jean continued to root about in the clothes, and an hour or so later she had a neat stack of brand clothing.

Finally, Jean took Dor to the library, the same library Dor had seen when she’d first walked through L-Space. There were rows of shelves on either side with tables and chairs in the center and tall windows along the back wall. Jean lead Dor to a small side room. She fiddled with a panel on the wall, diming the lights. The room reminded Dor of the study room she’d used at Hogwarts and the one she and Twilight Sparkle has used at Canterlot. She was beginning to wonder if every proper library had such a room.

Jean kicked off her shoes and sat near the center of the room, legs crossed, and Dor did the same, tucking her charcoal grey Hogwarts skirt under her backside. She blushed to show off her bare knees, but kind of hoped Jean would notice. The thought made her blush harder. Surely the older girl was interested in the painfully handsome Scott Summers. Besides, Dor had feelings for Kya.

“Dorothy, before we begin, I have to apologize,” said Jean.

Dor cleared her throat and tried to focus. “To me? What for?”

“That night, a few months ago, on the rooftop. We should have fought harder for you. I should have fought harder for you. Scott and I, it was one of our first real missions. We were sent to rescue a single mutant girl from the sentinels. When there were two of you, I… panicked. So when the pyrokinetic arrived to take you away… Between me and Cyclops and Storm, we could have fought her off. We could have protected you. But I told the others to hold off. I was afraid of the complication.”

Jean cleared her throat and wiped at her cheeks.

“It’s not your fault,” said Dor. “Mr. Quillon sent Elmira though the multiverse after me. He was awful, and she was awful, but they’re both gone now and…”

“It’s not that,” said Jean. “I made the call to leave you behind. And I want you to know, I’ve regretted it ever since. I’ll never do that again.”

Dor reached out to the other girl and Jean took her head. “Thank you.”

Jean smiled, then cleared her throat, releasing Dor’s hand. “The Professor tells me you’re experienced with meditation, that you’ve a mental construct for organizing your thoughts. With your permission, I’d like to touch my mind to yours.”

Dor nodded. With a breath and a thought, she was sitting in the room in her mind, book-crammed shelves lining the walls, over-stuffed chair in one corner, study table taking up the center. The door at one end that lead to the vast multiverse was a warm spark in her chest. But it all felt cramped, like the walls were too close, the books out of order, the table too big. It was because she was distracted, thinking about Jean, about Kya…

A knock came from the door in her mind, and Dor knew it was Jean. With a thought she opened the door and Jean entered. The tall girl looked around and stepped up to the shelves to examine the book titles.

“You can read these?” Jean asked.

Dor nodded. “Can’t you?”

Jean shook her head. “It’s like I’m in a dream. It sort of makes sense when I look at it, but as soon as my eyes go to the next word, it’s all different.”

Dor joined the other girl and looked at the books. Standing close to Jean made her skin tingle.

To Dor, the titles all made perfect sense: Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Though she didn’t know the books, she was excited to read them just by the titles. One of them even bore one of her names, Alice.

“The Professor said you had a sort of spell book. May I see it?”

Dor ran her eyes along the shelf until she found her grimoire and withdrew it. She handed it to Jean and they both sat at the table.

“The playing cards are a sort of metaphor for the powers I’ve learned by observation,” Dor said. “I showed Minwu the spells I learned from her and she said it felt like a compact version of what she knew.”

Jean took her time with each card in turn, and Dor took the time to reexamine Ben’s Petrosapien. While each other card was either a Sorcery or an Enchantment, this card was labeled a Creature. She didn’t know what that meant. Would it summon a version of the crystalline golem to stand at her side? Would it transform her into a version of that creature?

Jean withdrew Jubilee’s Dazzler. “When did you learn this one?”

“In the alleyway in New York City, fighting the mechanical spiders.”

Jean replaced the card and turned the page. She touched Gems’ Fusion. “Is this what you used when you and Jubilee… combined?”

Dor nodded.

“What was it like?”

“Strange and wonderful. It was like I was someone else, but still, part of me was in there. We were powerful together. Strong and confident. That’s… that’s why we disobeyed. We didn’t want that jerk to think he’d gotten the better of us. We knew we could beat him.”

Storm’s Salvo had taken its place after Gems’ Fusion.

“And this?”

“I just learned that one yesterday, when Storm flew in to save us. I haven’t tried to cast it yet.”

“And all you had to do to learn it was to see it?”

Dor shrugged. “I don’t really know. I saw Twilight Sparkle blast timberwolves with beams of magic, watched Protego and Stupify cast over and over, I watched you fight with energy from your mind, and didn’t learn any of it. I don’t know if it happens when I’m focused or relaxed or if there’s any discernable pattern at all.”

Jean put a hand on Dor’s back and rubbed gently. Dor realized her voice had gone high and plaintive. She blushed and hunched her shoulders.

“It’s all right Dorothy. As I understand it, you’ve only just started to learn about your powers. You don’t need to be an expert right away. That’s what we’re here for, to learn.”

Dor nodded and blinked, trying not to cry.

Jean turned back a page. “If I might make a recommendation.” She tapped Pince’s Catalogue. “This one feels like something I might do to settle my thoughts.”

“It’s a spell of mental organization,” Dor said, chiding herself. She should have thought of that. She took a breath. “Catalog Cogitatus,” she said softly, remembering the words Madam Pince had spoken. “Catalog Cogitationes meas.” The room in her mind expanded like a breath, and settled. The books that had seemed overstuffed a moment before now felt meticulous.

“Nice,” said Jean. She turned the pages of Dor’s grimoire until they reached the stolen artifacts. “Why don’t you choose one for us to start with?”

Dor plucked Excalibur from its pocket.

“The sword of King Arthur,” said Jean. “I don’t suppose you’re a time traveler?”

Dor shook her head. She explained about parallel earths and alternate earths and how the year where she came from was nineteen-o’eight. “But then there are worlds that aren’t even Earth. And at least one of them has a legend about a sword called Excalibur, so…” Dor swallowed hard and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She didn’t know why she was being so emotional.

Jean rubbed her back again. “There’s no rush, Dorothy. Let’s focus on just this card. Everything on the first two pages is a spell, an action you can take, a way to focus the energy in your body through your mind. Correct?”

Dor had never thought of it quite like that, but it sounded accurate and she nodded.

“But these cards are something else,” Jean continued.

Dor nodded again.

“Explain them to me.”

“Silas Quillon was a Time Master from a universe called Earth-1. He was sentenced to a mindcage that became the Infinite Library and with the Infinite Library he was able to discover and steal a variety of artifacts from across the multiverse. He showed them to me once. He kept them in display cases. When the Infinite Library collapsed, it was anchored to my use of L-Space.

“He told me there are more variations of Earth than any other plane of existence. That on some of those versions, King Arthur and his magical sword were real. He also told me he convinced the Lady of the Lake to give him this version.” Dor tapped the card. “I don’t know if he was telling the truth about any of that.”

“In my experience,” said Jean, “It is extraordinarily difficult to lie mind to mind. If this Quillon person were here, we could probe his mind for the truth. But mental energy is not exclusive to a sentient mind. Sometimes an item of great import can carry a sort of mental echo of those for whom it was especially important. I should think Excalibur, of any variation, will be one of those items.

Dor felt her chest expand and her shoulders ease, relief tingling down her spine. That there might be a way to right Mr. Quillon’s wrongs felt good. “So what do we do?”

“We focus,” said Jean. She tapped at the table with a knuckle. “This is a mental construct, right? I’m used to meditating by sitting on the floor. Could you, perhaps, put the table away for a while?”

“Oh, um…” With her mind focused by Pince’s Catalogue, Dor realized it’d be easy to do. She put both hands on the table and imagined a sort of closet where it could go with no more effort than a thought. In the next moment it was gone. Jean and Dor sat cross-legged, facing each other, the grimoire on the floor between them, closed, and the card entitled Excalibur resting upon the front cover.

Jean held her hands out to Dor and Dor took them unselfconsciously. When their hands touched so too did their surface thoughts.

“Focus on the card and the artifact it represents. Focus on where it’s been, what it’s done and who has held it. There may be many versions of Earth, of King Arthur, of Excalibur, but we must focus on this one. Thought. Emotion, Deed. All can echo through time and space. All we have to do is sit and listen.”

Dor took a long, slow, quiet breath. She held it, her chest thumping gently, a quiet rhythm for a quiet mind. She parted her lips and released the breath slowly, letting it go in time to her heartbeat. She let the rhythm fill her until it dictated the rate of her breath and pricked at her skin. With each breath in and each breath out, the rhythm slowed until between one and the next, everything went still. There was naught but her thought and Jean’s and the great expanse of the cosmos like a delicate sphere not an arm’s length away, and beyond was the Blind Eternities.

Between her thought and Jean’s, Excalibur hummed like vibrating metal, just at the edge of hearing. And somewhere beyond the Blind Eternities, another sphere hummed in response.

Dor gasped, both pleased and surprised, and the moment ended. Dor fell into herself and blinked in the dimly lit study room at Jean, who blinked back at her.

Jean smiled. “Well done, Dorothy.”

“What do you mean?” Dor shook her head, frustrated. “I lost focus. I ruined it.”

“Dor, we just cast our consciousness into the multiverse, and the multiverse responded. I never expected to meet with such success so quickly. I expected it would take weeks to get anywhere near that kind of result.”

That mollified Dor.

Jean stretched her arms behind her back and stood gracefully. She went to the wall panel and tapped at it to raise the lights. “Oh. It’s already 4:30 in the afternoon. I’ve missed my training session Scott.”

“Sorry,” said Dor.

Jean waved a hand. “Not at all. This was endlessly more fascinating. Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

~*~

Dor fit in at Xavier’s Institute just as well as with the Changs and the Hufflepuffs. She sat with Jubilee, Shadowcat, and Squirrel Girl at dinner then joined them in one of the common rooms afterward to play a boardgame called Monopoly with Psylocke and Nightcrawler. Dor didn’t understand it, but she played along and lost gamely. Some of the junior X-Men were in another room watching a film on a futuristic device, some in yet another room played billiards, still others had gone to their dorm rooms early.

When Cyclops called curfew, the junior X-Men all went off to their dorm rooms.

That night, Dor borrowed paper and a pen to write letters to Madam Pince, Professor Sprout, Isabel, and the Hufflepuffs. After Jubilee had fallen asleep, Dor used L-Space and the warmth at her chest to planeswalk to the Hogwarts library where she placed the notes on Madam Pince’s desk. The Hogwarts Library was dim and quiet. Snow fell thickly outside the windows.

The next morning, Dor meditated with Jean and though they were able to get the card of Excalibur to resonate with some far, distant plane, they made no more progress than they had before. Jean had class with the Professor that afternoon, leaving Dor free. Dor took the opportunity to visit Minwu’s cottage, but the woman wasn’t present and Dor didn’t want to disrupt her if she was in class. She took to wandering the halls of Xavier’s Institute then out onto the grounds, reveling in the warmth of summer.

Grunts and shouts of pain took her attention and she made her way to a grassy sort of courtyard tucked behind the mansion where a group of junior X-Men crowded around a pair tussling hand to hand. They were all clad in the black, close-fitting armor of Xavier’s Institute, each with detailing in some other personalized color.

Dor hunched in on herself. There had been conflicts between girls at the orphanage, sometimes even fights. Dor had tried to avoid them but had more than once been on the rough end of a girl who wanted to shove her around. She was surprised none of the others intervened. She’d gotten the impression at breakfast that everyone here was pretty friendly with everyone else.

One of the students managed to pull the other off balance and flip them onto their back on the grass. The flipped student cried out and Dor realized it was Jubilee. Dor’s resolve stiffened and with a sudden, crack of magic she teleported to the group, purple sparks dancing in her wake. She put herself between Jubilee and the other student, a girl with fire-red hair and bright green eyes. The detailing on her uniform was bright orange.

The girl stumbled back, eyes wide, and put her hands out at chest height. Globes of yellow-orange heat immediately burst around her hands. Dor drew her wand and felt the magic at her shoulders. She considered her options. There was no ready source of water, so it’d have to be Jubilee’s Dazzler, unless she wanted to go with the fire spells.

Jubilee grabbed Dor from behind, wrapping her arms around Dor’s chest and pulling her back. Dor knew immediately it was Jubilee from her touch. Her skin tingled and felt warm and Gems’ Fusion flickered to the fore of her mind. A short man with a gruff expression and scruffy chin interposed himself in the next moment. After several moments, Dor remembered Jean pointing him out to her. It was Logan, the combat teacher.

“Easy, Dorothy,” Jubilee said. “We were just sparring.

Dor lowered her wand.

The other girl lowered her hands and the yellow-orange heat globes faded.

“Oh!” Dor turned to face Jubilee. “This is a class? I didn’t realize…” Jubilee nodded, wide-eyed. Dor blushed hard and tears sprang to her eyes. She turned to look again at the red-headed girl. “I’m so, very sorry. I thought…”

“Jones, you good?” Logan’s voice was low and gravely, like a deep-throated canid. Dor backed up several step, Jubilee with her. The red-headed girl, Jones he had called her, shook her shoulders and put her hands behind her back.

“I’m good. Just startled.”

Logan turned to face Dor, crossing his thick arms over his barrel chest and frowed. He wasn’t very tall, but he didn’t need to be. He was built like a tree trunk and his scowl made her swallow nervously. Clearly, he was unhappy with her interruption. She tried not to shrink back. Tried to remind herself this place was safe. But she couldn’t help biting her lip and hunching her shoulders. She couldn’t help the tears of embarrassment from streaming down her cheeks.

“It’s all right, kid. I’m not gonna hurt her,” he growled. “This is the new girl, right Sparkles? She’s with you?”

“Yeah,” said Jubilee. “She didn’t know it was just sparring. She didn’t mean to…”

He nodded and turned to face the gathered students. “Pair up. Practice your throws.” He looked sidelong at Jubilee. “Sparkles, you’re with Chipmunk.”

“I’m a squirrel!” Squirrel Girl shouted, indignant.

Logan ignored her.

“That’s hardly fair,” said Jubilee. “She’s got super strength.”

“You think the bad guys are going to go easy on you because you don’t have super strength?” Logan demanded, turning the full force of his gruff upon Jubilee.

Jubilee quailed. “No, sir.”

“Then get to it.” Then he pointed at Dor. “You’re with me.”

Dor felt herself go faint. She was certain she couldn’t throw this man, no matter what spells she might turn against him.

“Mr. Logan, go easy on her,” said Jubilee.

Logan growled at her and Jubilee scurried off but not before shooting Dor a sympathetic look.

Logan turned to face the junior X-Men, all of whom had paired up and were practicing the same grappling throw the red-headed girl had used on Jubilee. Facing them, he wasn’t facing her. In fact he almost had his back to her. Dor took the opportunity to scrub the tears from her face and take a deep breath. Logan kept his arms crossed firmly, stance wide.

Other than Squirrel Girl and Jubilee, Dor saw Shadowcat paired with the blue-skinned boy, Nightcrawler; and Iceman with the red-headed girl, Jones; and the large boy with the thick accent, Colossus, was paired with the purple-haired girl, Psylock. She watched as Psylock grabbed Collosus’s arm and expertly levered his weight against him, tossing him to the grass. The boy hopped up with a grin and a nod and they did it again.

“Where you from, kid?” Logan didn’t look at her.

Dor started to speak, cleared her throat, and tried again. “St. Bridget’s Orphanage in Wakefield, Quebec. That’s in Canada.”

He nodded. “I know the town.”

Dor gave a small chuckle. “Perhaps you do, but I’m from a different version of Earth where there’s no magic and no superpowers. Also, it’s nineteen-o’-eight. My guess is my version of Wakefield probably doesn’t look much like yours.”

Logan grunted. “Why do they call you Door?”

“It’s short for Dorothy.”

“I thought it might be because you’re a teleporter. Not a codename then.”

Dor shook her head. She approached cautiously until she stood almost even with him, less than an arm’s length away. He kept his gaze on the students practicing their throws. He was less intimidating when his fearsome glower was aimed elsewhere.

“I really didn’t mean to interrupt. I don’t make a habit of attacking people unprovoked,” said Dor. 

Logan shifted, uncrossing his arms and planting his fists on his hips. “You’ve got a good stance. You study Tai Chi?”

“Waterbending,” said Dor “Northern style, I think. We only practiced together for about a week, but the basics have stuck with me.”

Logan grunted. “Rumor had it you’ve been in a fair number of scraps.”

“I suppose. Mostly I’ve had help or gotten lucky.”

He nodded. “As long as you’re gonna stick around, you’re gonna be trained. Tell Grey to schedule you some time with me in the Danger Room.”

Dor shivered. “What’s that?”

“It’s a place where mutants can let loose with their powers, practice without hurting anyone.” He turned to look at her, arms still firmly crossed. “You lookin’ to stick around? To be an X-Man?”

Dor shrugged. “It would be nice to have a team to belong to, but I have all these artifacts I need to return to their planes of origin. Jean is trying to help me figure out how to do it. Once we’ve understood it, I’ll have to go.”

Logan looked back at the other students. They stood in silence for a while, the junior X-Men grunting and shouting and cheering and groaning. After a while, Dor plucked up her courage to ask, “Mr. Logan, am I in trouble for attacking that girl?”

Logan stroked his chin, thumb rasping across the stubble. “You defended a friend. That’s what X-Men do.”

~*~

That evening, at dinner, Jubilee made sure they sat with Angelica Jones, Firestar. Dor apologized again, but Firestar laughed it off. “No sweat, new girl. That was pretty impressive, how you zapped right in there. I’m glad you’re one of us.”

After dinner, Dor begged off on loitering in the common room. Instead she went up to the dorm rooms. At the foot of the stairs, Jubilee caught up with her

“Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” said Dor.

Once in their room, Jubilee sat on her bed. “Is something up?” she asked, tone deliberately nonchalant.

Dor shook her head. “I thought I’d visit Minwu and Li this evening. I don’t want them to worry about me.”

“You could have just said that,” said Jubilee.

“What?” Dor looked at the other girl, surprised at the resentment in her tone.

“Instead of just wandering off, I mean.”

“I’m sorry, I just… I didn’t want to… Jubilee, I’m not leaving. I just want to check in with them, that’s all.”

Jubilee sat on her bed and nodded. “Sorry. Guess I’m just a little jealous.”

“Of what?”

“Your other friends.” She shrugged. “I think. I don’t know. You’re my first real friend. I never stayed anywhere long enough to make friends before. And now I’ve got Squirrel and Shadowcat and, well, everyone here, really. But still. You stuck with me when we were hunted by sentinels. You didn’t have to do that.”

Dor was stunned. She sat next to Jubilee and put her arm around the other girl’s shoulder. Her cheeks warmed and her spine tingled. “Before I left St. Bridget’s, I didn’t have any friends either. Now I have friends across the multiverse. You are a dear friend, Jubilee.” She kissed Jubilee’s cheek.

Jubilee sniffled and giggled. “All right. Go see your friends. Tell me all about it when you get back, yeah?” She kissed Dor’s cheek in return, and warmth spread through Dor’s body, shivering her skin and filling her vision with golden light.


	5. Mysidia, Part 2

She took a deep breath, reveling in her existence. She remembered what had happened, fighting that mercenary, getting her butt saved by Storm, then she’d ceased to exist. But she remembered the time in between: the shower, the spanking, introductions, dreaming of the Professor, meditating with Jean, and standing up for Jubilee. It was a strange combination of memory and dream. She’d been there, but only kind of. The times when Dor and Jubilee had been together were her strongest memories.

She got to her feet and hurried to the bathroom, locking the doors, and looking in the mirror. She was tall. Well, she was taller than Dor or Jubilee. Probably about Jean’s height. Her skin was a smooth, pale shade of brown. Her hair was much longer than Jubilee’s pixie cut, jet black with bright auburn highlights and all held back in a single, long braid.

She wore a black t-shirt with a bright pink circle-inscribed X on the left breast, the same t-shirt Jubilee had worn; and a charcoal grey Hogwartian skirt, the same skirt Dor had worn. Curious, she hiked up her skirt to find pink panties with a purple waistband, a combination of the panties both girls had worn. In an excited hurry, she pulled off her clothes to get a better look at her new body.

She had four arms. She stretched the upper pair above her head and the lower pair out to the side, rotating them each in turn. The upper arms were set slightly behind the lower, and when she moved them she watched her skin stretch over muscle and bone, showing she had two sets of collar bones and shoulder blades.

She further had two sets of eyes, one set above the other. Her upper eyes were dark brown, almost black, the other were deep emerald green. She blinked the lower pair, then the upper, then each in turn, delighting in how easy it was. She wondered if her head was slightly bigger, or her cheek bones slightly smaller to accommodate the extra pair of eyes, but nothing about her face looked out of proportion to her.

Giggling, she reveled in examining herself: pale brown skin, sprinkling of freckles, cute little nose, long legs, tiny waist, full hips, and breasts. Neither Dor nor Jubilee had much in the way of breasts, but hers, while not as full as some, were definitely noticeable, with small, dark nipples and freckles playing at their tops.

“I wonder…” she whispered. “I was going to Mysidia. Do you want… Of course. I’d love to meet them. If it will work that is.” It was odd, talking to herself. She wasn’t quite Dor, wasn’t quite Jubilee. She was someone different. Someone new. And yet part of her knew she was a pair.

“It’s worth a shot.”

She put her clothes on before exiting the bathroom and sitting in the center of the dorm room. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and focused on that mental space, the room in Dorothy Alice Wendy’s mind that held every book she’d ever read and several more besides, that functioned as a library and granted her access to L-Space and thereby the multiverse. She could see it, but it did not come to her readily.

Should have known it wouldn’t work.

We’re not giving up yet.

She felt at the back of her mind and touched Pince’s Catalogue.

“Catalog Cogitatus.” Her thoughts organized. She sat up straighter. The warmth in her chest grew. She reached for the room in her mind and it came to her. It came slowly, like an old friend recognizing who she’d once been and warming to the idea of who she was now.

With a breath and a blink, she sat on the floor in her mind where the table usually stood. She got to her feet and looked around.

“This is… amazing,” she whispered.

She walked around the room, examining the titles, until she came to the doorway. With a flutter in her chest, she pushed open the door to the book-lined corridors of L-Space beyond.

“I… We don’t have to… I want to.”

She stepped into L-Space, focusing on Minwu, her friend, her sister, and a corridor opened on her right. She turned and stumbled and fell through bookcases. She put her lower arms out to catch herself and found the back of a cushioned chair. Looking up, she saw Minwu and Li sitting at a small, round table, finishing breakfast.

Li stood warily. She could see him taking a cautious stance, but her eyes were for Minwu. Minwu’s pink hair was pulled back in a simple tail, her cheeks were flushed. Her torso was naked and she held a baby, one in each arm, to nurse noisily at her breasts.

The woman who was partly Dor, partly Jubilee, gasped. “You had your babies!”

“Who are you?” Li demanded. His tone was low and calm with a hint of a threat.

“Oh. Right. You don’t recognize me. I’m Dora… Ju… lee? Doralee?” The name felt good. It felt right. “I’m Doralee. I think. Yeah. Doralee. I’m a fusion of Dor and her buddy Jubilee. From the Marvelverse. Marvelverse? What’s… never mind, I’ll figure it out later. I, that is, Dor, she was coming to visit, ‘cause you said you’d worry if she didn’t. But Jubilee’s not been feeling like she totally fits in with the X-Men yet. It’s hard being the new kid, ya’ know? And then they fused and I wondered if I’d be able to planeswalk and now, well, here I am.”

Li looked at Minwu with a small shrug.

“You do kind of look like Dorothy,” said Minwu.

“Yeah. You saw the fusion spell in her grimoire. Well, I’m the result.” She smiled wildly and spread her arms.

Minwu nodded carefully.

“Here, look, I’ll…” Doralee rested the hands of her lower arms at the small of her back, lacing the fingers just above her bottom, and the hands of her upper arms at her navel, lacing the fingers just above her pelivis. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and with a thought, Gems’ Fusion appeared in her mind. The gold-bordered playing cards showed Rainbow Quartz glowing and at the ready. It felt warm and heavy in her mind, like all the playing cards did, far more than the cardboard it appeared to be.

The wording of the cards had always been strange to Dor, like she was missing the context that would make it clear. The text box of Gems’ Fusion mentioned tokens and battlefields, and Minwu’s Cura described preventing damage rather than fixing it. It was like there was a rule book she didn’t have access to. But Princess Celestia had said magic relied on metaphor, and Minwu had said the Cura and Lifa cards were a compact version of the spells she knew.

So, though Gems’ Fusion said little about how to unfuse, Doralee felt certain, under normal circumstances, she’d have been able to unfuse with a simple application of power. But the multiverse rang like a bell in her mind, and she knew, without knowing quite how, that the planeswalker spark was inextricably tied to the soul of Dorothy Alice Wendy and while her soul was tied to Jubilee’s, they could planeswalk together in the form of Doralee. But so long as they were on a plane not of Jubilee’s origin, they could not unfuse.

She opened her eyes.

“My apologies. I can’t unfuse. I just wanted to let you know I’m all right. That Dor is all right. We’re working on a way to return the artifacts. But you said you’d worry if she didn’t check in, so… I-I’ll just head back now.”

“Wait,” said Minwu. “Don’t leave. It’s good to see you, Dorothy. Or… I’m sorry. What did you say your name is?”

“Doralee. I suppose it’s a combination of Dorothy and Jubilee’s names.”

“Why don’t you have breakfast with us?” Said Minwu.

“There’s coffee,” said Li. “Do you like coffee? Dor does.”

Doralee nodded. “But I probably shouldn’t have any. It’s just about bedtime back at the Institute.” She accepted a seat at the table.

“Interesting. You must be on a different hemisphere on that world than this one. Is your world on a twenty-five hour day cycle like ours?” Minwu asked, suddenly enthusiastic.

“No,” said Doralee. “It’s twenty-four hours.”

“Fascinating,” said Minwu. She looked about to ask another question when one of the babies let loose her nipple with a sigh. Then the other did the same.

“Still in sync,” said Li. He held out his hands and Minwu handed him one of the babies. She took a terrycloth napkin from the table and draped it over her shoulder while Li did the same and, almost in unison, they put the babies up to their shoulders and gently rubbed their backs.

“This is Palom,” said Minwu of the baby whose back she rubbed.

“And this is Porum,” said Li.

Doralee didn’t know how they could tell them apart as they looked identical to her.

The babies burped, first one then the other. Li and Minwu moved into a carefully synchronized flurry of activity, wiping the babies’ mouths, cleaning off each other’s shoulders, moving to the bedroom, changing the babies’ diapers, and settling them into a wooden bassinet where they yawned and cuddled and slept.

In the distance, a bell tolled.

“I’ve got class,” said Li quietly. “But I could stay if you like.”

Minwu shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”

Li flicked a glance as Doralee. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable leaving you with…”

“It’s Dororhty,” said Minwu.

Li shrugged and looked at Doralee apologetically. “Kind of.”

Doralee blushed and put her lower pair of hands behind her back, swaying. “That’s all right. I really should be getting back anyway. I only wanted to check in.”

Li sighed. “I need to get going. These mages can barely do a pushup and I’m expected to teach them hand to hand combat.” He kissed Minwu’s cheek, gave Doralee a wink, and was out the door.

“Dorothy, would you fetch me that robe, please?”

Doralee looked to where Minwu pointed. There was a worn white robe with the repeating, red triangle pattern along the hem draped over the back of one of the chairs by the bookcases in the corner through which Doralee had planeswalked. It was simple terrycloth with a terrycloth belt. Doralee grabbed it and brought it to Minwu where she sat on the bed in the adjoining room, rocking the bassinet with one foot.

“I’m sorry,” said Minwu as she took the robe and put it on, covering her naked torso. “Your name isn’t Dorothy in this form.”

“You know Dor, not me. But Dor is a big part of who I am, so it’s fine.”

“Names are important,” said Minwu. “I should get it right.”

Doralee smiled. In the back of her mind, she remembered Dor wishing for her own last name and felt a twinge of sympathy. As a temporary being, Doralee didn’t feel any desire for one of her own.

“So, tell me what it’s like,” said Minwu. “If you can linger that is. What’s it like fusing with another being?”

Doralee smiled and sat cross-legged on the floor. “It’s amazing. I’m a representation of Dor and Jubilee’s relationship. When they met, they were both running away, Dor from that horrid orphanage and Jubilee from the sentinels. Each sought a haven and in a dark, dirty alleyway, they found each other. Even though they were only together for a few hours, they became fast friends. They’re stronger together, more confident, ready to take on anything.”

“That’s amazing. I’m happy for you. For both of you.”

A high-pitched whistle interrupted their conversation. A kettle on the wood burning stove at the other end of the cottage trembled and spat steam. One of the babies whimpered.

Minwu started to stand, but Doralee was faster.

“I’ll get it.” She hurried through to the other room and the stove. She grabbed the kettle by the handle and looked around for a place to put it. The table was wooden and she was afraid the hot kettle would burn it. In fact, the handle was hot in her hand, quickly getting to the point of painful, and she switched it to another, realizing she probably should have picked it up with one of the towels nearby.

“There’s a pad on the counter by the sink,” said Minwu even as one of the babies began to wail.

“Shit,” said Doralee. The kettle was burning her hand. She cast her gaze about and found a copper sink set into a wooden counter. And upon the counter was a circular marble pad set atop a cloth mat. Doralee set the kettle down and shook her burned hands, wincing. She turned her hands up and looked at them. Both upper hands were red, though the left was worse and blistering.

“That was stupid,” she chided herself. She looked at the sink to run cool water over hands, but there were no taps.

“Doralee, come in here,” said Minwu.

Both babies were crying now and Doralee felt awful. She went back into the bedroom, hiding her burned hands behind her back. Minwu had one of the babies in her arms and was rocking the other in the bassinet, trying to quiet them.

“I’m sorry,” Doralee said.

Minwu shook her head. “Did you burn yourself?”

“Um…”

“Show me.”

Doralee held out her upper hands. The left was definitely the worse burned of the two, but both hurt.

“Here, can you take him?”

Minwu held out the baby and Doralee took him in her lower hands. She held the baby to her chest as Minwu took her hands by the wrist and pulled them to her. She took a deep breath and her form was limned with green light. That light suffused Doralee and focused on her burns, soothing them.

Doralee closed her eyes. In her mind’s eye, a white sphere appeared in a sparkling of light, much as it had when Ben had transformed into Diamondhead. She reached out with a thought and the sphere dropped into her mental grasp, transforming into a playing card.

 

Minwu’s Heala W

Tribal Sorcery – Cleric

Choose one or both:

● Remove up to two -1/-1 counters from target creature you control.

● Destroy target Aura attached to a creature you control.

 

“Well, how about that,” said Doralee.

“Does that feel better?” Minwu asked.

Doralee opened her eyes. The burns were gone. “Yes, thank you.”

Minwu picked up the other baby.

Doralee rocked the baby boy in her arms. He had the chubby, scrunched face of a baby and a pale wisp of hair. He was warm and wiggly against her chest, cradled in her arms. Looking into his face, she felt a surge of warmth. This was a baby with a loving parents who would know a loving childhood, something Doralee had never experienced. But she wasn’t jealous, she was happy for him, for all of them.

When the babies were settled, they put them back in the bassinet.

Minwu lead Doralee to the front room and closed the door with a quiet click. Then she began cleaning up the remains of breakfast.

“You sit,” said Doralee. “Let me do that.”

“You don’t have to do chores for me,” said Minwu.

“You just grew two whole people. Let me be a friend and help out.”

Minwu laughed, then covered her mouth and looked at the bedroom door. When no infant wails sounded, they gave a pair of relieved sighs. Minwu sat and Dor set about cleaning up. Neither Dor nor Jubilee was stranger to doing dishes, and once she figured out how to work the pump at the sink, Doralee was well on her way.

“I couldn’t help but notice the look on your face when I cast Heala,” said Minwu. “Did you manage to add it to your collection of spells?”

Doralee grinned while scrubbing a plate. “I did.”

“Have you figured out how it works?”

She thought of the sphere of magic that had become a playing card. “Maybe? Dor seems really uncertain about it, but I think it’s got something to do with observation and metaphor. The playing cards are all metaphors. I think she’s just needs a way to visualize grabbing onto the spell or power or whatever it is.”

When she was done cleaning, Doralee put the kettle back on and brewed Minwu a cup of coffee. She declined to have any herself. Despite the morning here in Ivalice, the evening back at the Institute was catching up with her. She looked at the bookcases and yawned. “I really should go back. It was lovely to meet you, Minwu. I hoped I didn’t disrupt your morning too much.”

“Not at all.”

They exchanged hugs. Minwu kissed her cheek, and Doralee went back to the bookcase. With a thought, they books parted and granted her access to L-Space. Once in the place between planes she was drawn by a tug at her middle, back through the narrow, book-lined corridors, to the plane of Jubilee’s origin, the Marvelverse. Her vision filled with golden light, her skin buzzed and itched. She stumbled, blindly, forward until she fell to the floor of the library at Xavier’s Institute and shimmered apart.


	6. Xavier's Institute, Part 3

In the mornings, Dor spent a couple hours with Jean, meditating. Every time, they were able to quiet their minds and reach through the multiverse, Excalibur’s card pulsing between them, but they could not pinpoint the artifact’s origin.

“Don’t worry about it, Dorothy. With your spark to travel between planes, I’ve seen more than I ever thought I would. We just need to keep at it.”

But Dor got the impression Jean was more disappointed than she let on.

In the afternoons, she had training in the Danger Room with Logan, or Wolverine as the X-Men called him. The Danger Room was a large room that created illusionary automatons for junior X-Men to train against. They reminded Dor of the mechanical spiders she and Jubilee had fought, but human shaped. The others called them robots. Dor sat with Jubilee and Shadowcat on a bench against the wall while Nightcrawler teleported about the room in puffs of black and magenta smoke, dispatching automatons with deft kicks and a wide grin. At first Dor had been nervous, but after watching Nightcrawler, she was eager to show what she could do.

When the last illusory automaton staggered, collapsed, and dissolved into light, Nightcrawler let out a celebratory whoop and did a backflip.

“All right, elf. Not bad. Take a break,” Logan said. He didn’t smile, but Dor got the impression ‘not bad’ was high praise from as grizzled a man as him. “New girl. You’re up.”

Dor hopped up with more excitement than nervousness.

“Show ‘em what you got, girl,” Jubilee enthused, smacking her bottom playfully.

Dor hurried to Logan’s side.

“What can you do, kid?”

Dor ran down the mental list of her spells:

 

Ben’s Petrosapien

Harry’s Expelliarmus

Jubilee’s Dazzler

Minwu’s Cura

Minwu’s Heala

Minwu’s Lifa

Twilight’s Blink

 

Kya’s Waterbending

Pince’s Catalogue

 

Elmira’s Javelin

Elmira’s Whip

 

Gems’ Fusion

Storm’s Salvo

 

"Some of them aren’t about combat, like healing and focusing. And a couple of them, I’ve never cast.” She described observing Diamondhead and Storm.

“Let’s stick with the ones you know for now.”

Dor nodded. “I can disarm an opponent, teleport, use a version of Jubilee’s power, conjure fire and control water. I don’t’ see any water about though.”

Logan tapped at a tablet and a trio of illusory automatons appeared. He took a few steps back. Dor drew her wand and settled into a waterbending stance.

“They’re just going to stand there for now,” Logan said. “Do your thing.”

Dor cast Jubilee’s Dazzler, the palying card coming readily to her mind, the power flowing easily through her, focusing in her wand hand, and blasting through the end of the wand at the center of the three automatons. It staggered back, joints sparking, and collapsed.

She reached for Elmira’s Javelin next. She wasn’t as comfortable with the red-bordered spell, but that’s why she chose it. She wanted to get better, to get stronger, and to do so would requires she be familiar with all her tools. She thrust with her wand and launched the fiery projectile, striking a second automaton in its chest. It melted and exploded.

The coursing of fire through her body was exhilarating. She felt aflame, cheeks hot, skin tingling, , thoughts loose and at the ready. The second javelin came as easily as the first and the third automaton blew apart.

Logan grunted, but the junior X-Men on the sidelines applauded. Jubilee cheered loudly. Logan tapped at his tablet again.

“This time they’re aggressive. You ready, new kid?”

Dor nodded.

The destroyed automatons disappeared in a shimmer of light and a new trio appeared. The one in the middle held a long, single-edged blade in both hands. The two on either side spread out to flank her and she let them, focusing on the one in the middle. She launched a fiery javelin at it but it dodged aside and came for her. Dor’s eyes widened as the automatons closed. She reached for Kya’s waterbending, hoping the arms of water would defend her, before remembering there was no water in the Danger Room.

Desperate, she reached for Twilight’s Blink and felt the power fill her.

With a crack she leapt several feet behind where the automatons had started. Now behind them, she took a moment to settle her thoughts. “Catalog Cogitatus,” she murmured, and felt her panic fade. A quick Expelliarmus disarmed the sword-wielding automaton as they turned to face her. The sword leapt from the automaton’s hand and spun away harmlessly. She lashed her wand at the one on her right, letting Elmira’s whip extend from its tip and entangle her target. With a jerk, she pulled it into its fellows and the three bumbled for a moment in a tangle of limbs. Dor took a breath, the heat of Elmira’s Whip filling her nostrils, and with a pulse of power, the whip exploded, reducing the automatons to slag.

“Not bad, kid. You want a break or you wanna push it?” Logan asked.

Dor grinned, feeling more excited, more energized than ever she had.

“Absolutely.”

Dor lost track of time in the whirlwind of magic, sparks, and fire. She danced smoothing from one stance to the next, even though there was no water to call upon. Instead, she launched fire and light, teleporting about the Danger Room with adroit alacrity. The automatons got faster and stronger, able to take more than a single javelin or dazzler. They came armed with swords, then staves, then firearms. They got taller and better armored. And Dor fended them off until her braids were frazzled. Sweat slicked her hair and stuck her X-Man t-shirt to her chest and back.

“All right,” said Logan. “That’s enough. Take a seat, kid.”

Dor blinked sweat from her eyes and looked at the gruff man. He swayed and blurred. “I’cun take anotha roun’,” she said. Her joints were watery, her fingers numb, but her mind was sprinting and she was certain she could take on another hose of the illusions.

“No. Sparkles, Chipmunk, come get your friend.”

Jubilee and Squirrel Girl were suddenly on either side of her. Dor was certain Logan was wrong, that she could keep going and she pulled at her magic, that tingle at her shoulder blades, and let Twilight’s Blink take prominence in her mind. She’d teleport out of the girls’ grip and show them all just how ready she was. The magic flowed to her wand, was shaped by her mind, and the crack of teleportation was the last thing she knew before blacking out.

~*~

Dor woke in the room in her mind, sitting cross-legged across from the Professor.

“Ah, there you are, Dorothy.”

Dor looked around. The room was stuffed full and close. She felt fuzzy and slow. With a thought she reached for Pince’s Catalogue.

“I wouldn’t do that,” the Professor said, but a moment too late.

It was like a sore muscle, overused, Her shoulders tensed and she couldn’t use her magic.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Dor sighed. “I drained my mana. There’s only so much magical power within a person and using all of it is dangerous. I suppose I’m lucky I only passed out. I was just so caught up in the training… I suppose Mr. Logan is disappointed with me?”

Professor Xavier chuckled. “Actually he’s worried. The Wolverine may be fierce, but he takes the safety of his studnets seriously.”

Dor groaned. “That may well be worse.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Professor. I should have…”

The professor held up a hand. “Have you learned from your mistake, Dorothy?”

Dor nodded.

“Then you’ve nothing to be sorry for.” He smiled at her and Dor wanted to hug him, but held herself back. She didn’t really know him and didn’t want to be too forward. “It is difficult to keep thoughts to oneself mind to mind like this. I would be more than happy to receive a hug from you, Dorothy.”

He stood and Dor did the same, hugging him around the middle. He put his hands around her shoulders and Dor sighed, comfortable. After a while, she drew back.

“I suppose it’s time for me to wake up now.”

The Professor nodded. “I’m afraid you’ll have a headache. I’ve done what I could for it, but magic isn’t my area of expertise. Also, your friends are worried for you, they’ll want your assurance you’re all right.”

~*~

Dor awoke in her bed. Jubilee sat her side, tablet in hand.

“She’s awake,” said Jean Grey from further in the room. Dor tried to sit up and look around, but she was sore all over and just the thought of trying to move was too much. Within moments, a crowd of faces peered down at her: Jubilee, Shadowcat, Squirrel Girl, and Firestar. A few moments later, Jean joined them, her expression mild.

The girls peppered her with questions until Jean told them to give her some space. Dor explained about mana and what happened when she used too much. Then she apologized for worrying them while hot tears slid down her cheeks. She received assurances they weren’t upset with her and were all glad she was unharmed. Finally, Jean chivvied everyone out.

“Get some sleep Dorothy,” Jean said, voice cool.

Dor hoped the older girl wasn’t mad at her.

“Here,” said Jubilee. “Dr. McCoy gave me some pain killers. They should help you sleep.”

Jubilee held Dor sit up and gave her a pair of small blue pills and a glass of water. Dor swallowed them carefully, then groaned.

“Minwu would spank my bottom if she knew how foolish I’d been.”

“Really?” said Jubilee. “She seemed so sweet.” She took the glass from Dor and set in on a nearby table.

Dor nodded, then winced as her headache intensified. Dor closed her eyes and after several moments, when the headache faded, she took a deep breath. “She is. She’s wonderful. But she doesn’t brook much nonsense and I should have known better.”

Jubilee rubbed her back through the t-shirt. “For what it’s worth, I thought you were awesome.”

After a quiet day of recovery, Dor resumed her meditation with Jean in the morning and training with Logan in the afternoon. Meditating with Jean was nice and quiet, but yielded no more results than that first day. They would sit in the dim quiet together and after a time the cosmos of this plane, the Marvelverse as she couldn’t stop thinking of it, would string to within touching distance. Excalibur would pulse between them and, somewhere beyond the Blind Eternities, another plane would pulse in return. And then, no matter how patiently they waithed, no matter how hard they thought, no matter how far they reached, nothing else happened.

“Jean, are you mad at me?” Dor asked after another failed attempt. They sat together in the quiet study room in the library.

Jean looked at her, eyebrow raised. “Of course not. What makes you think that?”

“Well, it’s just, you seem disappointed.”

Jean shook her head, then sighed. “We made such amazing progress that first time. I thought I was getting stronger, becoming a better telepath, but now I’m certain it’s because of you. That spark I sense in you, that allows you to walk the multiverse, I can use it as a sort of telescope to see further, but that’s it. I’m not angry with you, Dorothy, but I am disappointed I haven’t been able to help you solve your problem.”

Dor looked down. “I see.”

“It’s not your fault, Dorothy.”

But Dor felt like it was her fault. Perhaps she could focus better, or concentrate harder. When she got to the Danger Room, Jubilee was there to greet her.

“How was meditation?”

Dor shrugged. “Same as usual, but no better.”

“At least it’s not getting worse,” said Shadowcat quietly.

Dor looked at her and smiled.

“Come on,” said Squirrel Girl boisterously. “Let’s go smash some robots and feel better about ourselves.”

Logan gave her a passing look when the entered the Danger Room. Dor blushed, but he didn’t say anything. When it was Dor’s turn, he said, “You said there’s a couple powers you’ve never tried before.”

Dor nodded.

“Let’s try them today. And if you begin to feel faint, tell me.”

Dor nodded again. “Yes, sir.”

“You said you can do what Storm does?”

Dor shrugged. “Of a sort. I don’t think I can fly, and I feel like she’s got a whoe hose of ways she can apply her power. But I’ve got a spell that, well, I saw her summon lightning and tornados, and I think I can do something like that.”

Logan grunted. “Show me.” He summoned a platoon of illusory automatons with a tap at his tablet. They stood still, waiting.

Dor closed her eyes and summoned her grimoire. She flipped to the second page where the gold-bordered cards were and withdrew Storm’s Salvo. Storm was tall and lithe with dark skin and white hair. She pulled the card from its pocket and sparks tickled along her hand up her arm to her shoulder. A cold breeze sent her braids to swaying. She shivered, but did not feel cold. The sent of rain filled her.

She opened her eyes and drew her wand. The power clenched between her shoulder blades, building. She raised her wand and pointed it at the automatons. A moment later, a bolt of lightning leapt from her wand to her targets even as a whirlwind cone surrounded them, lifting them into the air to be struck agin and again by the lightning.

It was over in moments.

Dor looked around to find the junior X-Men hiding behind the bench, Logon hunkered down nearby.

He stood and brushed off his knees. “All right. Well. Now we know what that does.” He looked at the junior X-Men who were all climbing back onto the bench. “Who wants to see her do that again?” Immediately every one of them raised their hands.

Dor cast the spell three more times, the illusory automatons of the Danger Room scattering before her power. She was ready to give it another go when Logan called a halt. “Let’s give someone else a turn.”

Dor took her seat next to Shadowcat and Jubilee to watch Squirrel Girl punch the automatons apart with her bare hands.

~*~

Dor found herself less excited to meditate with Jean that morning and after half an hour, Jean called it quits.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re focusing very well today.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dor. “It’s my—“

“It’s not your fault,” said Jean. “I’ve got a research paper I need to focus on for the Professor. Maybe we’ll take a break for a few days.”

Dor bit her lip. She liked meditating with Jean, even if they hadn’t met with much success and she felt bad wanting to focus on her training in the Danger Room, but she bit her lip and nodded. 

That afternoon, after Firestar had blasted heavily armored automatons with waves of intense heat, after Iceman had encased them in frozen blocks, after colossus had met them hand to hand and tossed them about like toys, it was Dor’s turn.

“Got anything you haven’t shown me?” Logan asked.

Dor nodded. “I’m not quite sure what it will do. It’s not marked like the others.

“Do I need to clear the room?” Logan asked.

Dor shook her head. “I won’t be casting lightning bolts or anything.”

Logan grunted and nodded, tapped at his tablet, then nodded at the trio of automatons.

Dor drew her wand, took a breath, and closed her eyes. Ben’s Petrosapien floated in her mind, a white-bordered card featuring a greenish-blue crystalline golem with a spiked fin crowning its head and the green hourglass symbol upon its chest. Dor let the power tingling at her shoulder blades fill her with slow, quiet breathing until it fairly burst from her fingers, then took her wand in both hands and gave the playing card a mental tap. The energy flowed, shaped by the spell and power pushed out from her body before she was ready for it.

The feeling started deep in her chest, cold and smooth and sharp. It grew with a song like vibrating crystal, each cell of her body resonated as it shifted and changed. The crystalline body grew from the inside out, pushing at her, stretching her, pulling her in every direction at once. It was strange and uncomfortable but not quite painful, as though she’d exercised a muscle she didn’t even know existed. The magic within tingled along her skin but rather than shiver, her skin sang with it. When it was done, Dor looked down at herself. She had become a petrosapien. She’d expected the spell to summon a petrosapien from elsewhere in the multiverse, after all summoning monsters to do one’s bidding was common legend and folktale. Perhaps it was because she’d learned the spell by observing a shapeshifter.

Her skin was blue with a faint purplish tinge. And though her limbs and digits were blocky and seemed cumbersome, she moved easily if heavily. She stretched her arms out and up then took a couple careful steps. Her body was tall and broad, all hard planes and sharp angles. Though she didn’t know if petrosapiens had a difference in sexes, she definitely felt masculine in this body. She held her hand palm up before her and curled the fingers one at a time, the joints clicking.

It took her a while to realize she was unclad. The clothes she worn, blue jeans and a t-shirt, had ripped from her body, shredded by the crystalline angles of the petrosapien form and her rapid growth. But she felt no shame in being nude as a petrosapien.

“This is unlike anything I’ve ever felt,” she said. Her voice was deep, sonorous, with a faint high-pitched ring. She looked around and realized her sense were different. Though her vision was much the same, colors were washed out. She couldn’t smell at all. But her hearing was acute, her whole body sensitive to the vibrations of movement and sound, almost like her crystalline skin was a kind of ear.

“How do I look?” she asked.

“Strong,” said Squirrel Girl.

“Awesome,” said Jubilee.

“Look like you’re up for a fight,” said Logan. “He nodded at the automatons. Ready?”

Dor turned to face them. She raised her fists and they shifted, each cell of her crystalline body sliding against each other like microscopic glass marbles, until they became a pair of long, sharp blades.

She grinned.

At Logan’s direction, she fought automatons of increasing difficulty. He showed her the basic techniques of in close brawling. When a trio of metal claws punched from between the knuckles on either of his fists, Dor jumped, surprised, but she paid attention and tried to use her blades as he used his claws. She couldn’t have said for how long she went at it, but when Logan called a halt she was winded and would have been sweating were she still human.

Dor reached for the spell in her mind and tapped at it. She felt the magic fill her and pull at her form, shrinking her, shifting her back to her human form. It was a moment or two before she remembered shifting into the petrosapien had shredded her clothes.

She knelt quickly so her knees covered her chest and wrapped her arms about them, squeezing het legs together to hide her nakedness as best she could. She blushed so hard she was sure her whole body was a uniform shade of red and tears sprang immediately to her eyes.

“Turn around, boys,” Logan snapped, voice like a warning bark.

“Here,” said Jubilee. Dor looked up, blinking away tears, and found Jubilee holding out her bright, yellow jacket. Dor took it, gratefully, and slipped it on. It was long, falling to her knees and was more than adequate to cover her nakedness.

“Thank you,” Dor whispered, barely above a croak. “I can’t believe I did that.”

“It’s all right,” said Jubilee. “It was an accident. And the boys turned around pretty quick. Well, except for Nightcrawler, but Colossus bopped him one.”

Dor blushed harder. Jubilee put an arm around her shoulders and steered her from the Danger Room. Squirrel Girl, Shadowcat, Firestar, and Siryn were all there with her in a solid pack of sisterhood.

“I did that once,” Firestar said as they made their way to the locker room showers. “I channeled to much heat I burned the clothes right off my body. Everyone got a good look at me in the buff.”

Dor sniffled, but had to admit the story made her feel a bit better.

“Me too,” said Shadowcat. “I phased right through my clothes one time when I wasn’t concentrating.”

Squirrel Girl giggled. “I remember that one.”

Jubilee patted Dor’s back.

After dinner that evening Dor joined the others to watch what they called a ‘chick-flick’. It was an inspiring tale about a young woman attending a prestigious law school and refusing to fall for the young man who treated her poorly. Later, Jubilee and Dor joined Squirrel Girl and Shadowcat in their dorm room to chat.

“Hey Dor, can we show everyone Doralee tomorrow? It’ll be our last training session in the Danger Room for a while.”

Dor tingled all over. Thinking of the tall, confident, four-armed woman excited her.

“That would be awesome,” said Squirrel Girl.

“What’s it like?” asked Shadowcat.

“So, totally amazing,” said Jubilee. “We so much more confident. And way powerful.”

“Is it, like, one of you controls the legs and…” Squirrel Girl trailed off.

Jubilee shook her head. “We’re one person. It’s like…” Jubilee looked at Dor.

“It’s like we’re our friendship has become a person and has the best parts of both of us.”

“Wow,” said Shadowcat quietly.

“Yeah,” said Jubilee.

~*~

Later, lying in bed, sleep about to claim her, Dor had an idea. If Jean was right and she was using Dor as a sort of telescope for her telepathy, perhaps fusion would bring those two things together, make them stronger. But broaching the idea of fusion with Jean made Jubilee blush. Her friendship with Jubilee had been forged by desperation in a dark alley, by fighting together. She and Jean didn’t have that. And she didn’t feel like she could ask for it, especially when she’d been focusing more on her training than her meditation.

But there was something Jean could do for her that might bring them closer. Something that might make up for her inattention in meditation.

That morning, after the others went off to class, Dor went back up to the dormitory floors, still in her pale yellow, Hufflepuff nightie, and knocked on Jean Grey’s study door. A few moments later, Dor felt the mental touch she’d come to know as Jean, then the door opened. Jean sat at her desk with her back to the door.

“Give me just a moment or I’ll lose this thought,” Jean said, tapping away at a keyboard.

Dor was familiar with typewriters, but this keyboard was attached to a screened tablet, like the one Logan carried in the Danger Room. Jubilee had called them computers and explained all the marvelous things they could do.

A few moments on, Jean sighed and turned her chair. Jean, too, hadn’t changed from her nightie, a pale blue, silky slip with string straps that had bunched about her waist, allowing Dor a brief glimpse of white panties before Jean crossed her legs.

“Good morning, Dorothy. I thought we were taking a break this morning.”

Dor nodded. “Ms. Grey, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a favor to ask.”

Jean gave her a quizzical look and a faint smile. “Um, you don’t have to call me that.”

Dor swallowed hard but nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I just… It’s kind of a big favor and I… I was wondering, that is… I was hoping you could help me out. I, um, I feel awful about what I did the other day, being careless with my powers and worrying everybody. I thought about visiting Minwu and asking for her help, but she’s just had twins and I don’t want to bother her.”

Jean folded her hands at her waist and nodded. “All right. And what is it you want from me?”

“I was… I was hoping you’d give me a spanking.”

Jean nodded, but she said, “What for?”

“For being foolish and reckless. For neglecting my own wellbeing. For worrying my friends.” Dor took a breath. “And for not focusing on us.”

Jean’s eyebrows raised.

“I mean our meditation. These last few days I’ve been focused on training with my spells. I feel like I could focus better on meditation. I feel like I’ve let you down.”

Jean shook her head. “You haven’t let me down, Dorothy.”

“Well, I had an idea, but, well, it’s kind of personal, and I don’t want to ask for such a big favor before I make amends. Does that make sense?”

“And by make amends, you mean you want me to spank you?”

Dor nodded.

Jean clasped her hands in her lap and said, “’m not sure you’ve earned a spanking, but if you think you have, I’ll grant your request. Are you certain?”

Dor nodded again.

“All right then.”

Jean stood and pushed her wheeled chair to its place under the desk, then went to the corner of her small study and picked up the straight-backed, armless chair, setting it in the center of her little study, just as she had before. She sat up tall, expression firm, knees together, and beckoned to Dor. Dor went to her, hiking up the back of her nightie and pulling it over her head to get it out of the way. She hadn’t worn a brassier to bed leaving her torso bare. She bent over Jean’s lap, palms flat, tip-toes stretched, and immediately felt at ease.

Jean pulled her panties down to her knees and Dor wiggled, shivering. Her wiggling sent her panties to her ankles where they slipped over her feet, leaving her bare tip to toe. Her bare midriff on Jean’s mostly bare thighs made her warm. Jean put one hand on her back and one on her bare bottom.

The first time jean had spanked Dor, over a week ago now, it had been a quick flurry of smacks that’d set her to quickly crying, and though Dor’s tear began as soon as she was over Jean’s lap, this spanking was different. This spanking was patient, meticulous. Jean spanked Dor low on her right cheek sharply and Dor gasped, there was a pause drawn out just long enough Dor thought it was over, then came the second in the same place on her left cheek. Both spanked spots tingled with sting. And on it went, a slow spanking with stinging slaps climbing up her bottom to just before the base of her back, then down again, building a smoldering sting that threatened to become a fire, but Jean kept it under control. The slow, steady rhythm gave Dor plenty of time to recover between spanks so, though tears flowed freely and she gasped and squirmed with each smack, she was not sobbing.

The sting in her bottom spread throughout her, joining the tingle at her shoulders. She remembered being bent over in Sister Mary Margaret’s study, bare bottom taking the cruel woman’s cane, and Twilight’s Blink coming to mind unbidden. Now it was Gems’ Fusion, the gold-bordered card warm as a spanking in her mind. And with each smack of Jean Grey’s hand on Dor’s bare bottom, the power at her shoulder’s pulsed, the card in her mind hummed. It grew stronger and louder until it filled her mind and threatened to spill forth. She tried to hold it back, tensing her body against each spank, gritting her teeth against the magic at her shoulders, holding her breath against the spell.

Jean Grey spanked her thigh and the sting of the spank broke her hold. The magic flowed. The spell was cast.

~*~

She hung, suspended, in the vast cosmos, and with a thought, her awareness expanded until those cosmos, this bare speck of a plane compared the expanse of the Blind Eternities and boundless Multiverse, was but a thin sphere binding her thoughts. She stretched her body hands over her head, fingers and toes pointed, until the tips of her touched the bounds of that sphere.

Keeping the tips of her left fingers on that sphere, she touched the middle of her forehead with her right and it was like a third eye had opened, an eye that could perceive the energy of thought. And from the third eye, she drew the playing card, Excalibur. When it was free, that third eye blinked and teared.

The card glowed in her hands, pulsing with power, pulsing in time to her heartbeat, filling her, filling the cosmos. And, beyond the Blind Eternities, that space between planes of existence, at a distance both vast and negligible, another plane pulsed in sympathy. She reached for it, her whole body pulsing now, her skin hot, tears at her eyes. She pushed her power through the card of Excalibur and felt that power reach for Excalibur’s home.

But a new presence gave her pause.

It was bright, hot, and telepathically massive. It hung in the distance, presence like a sun, and she feared it was staring at her, but after a while she realized it gazed everywhere at once. She recognized it as a cosmic entity. A presence greater than any living being. A deity perhaps. It was situated both within the Marvelverse and without. Perhaps in several versions of the Marvelverse, parallel versions, at once. She pulled back from it, back from the Blind Eternities, back into her self, back into the physical realm, her version of the real world.

When she came to in Jean Grey’s study at Xavier’s Institute, she shuddered with fear and swallowed hard. That great, fiery existence had terrified her, not only because of its vast power and existence, but because it had resonated with her. She shivered, and Jean pulled gently away from Dor until the one woman was two girls again.

Dor stumbled and gasped. Her mind shivering and her body throbbing. She turned to look at Jean who looked at her, tears in her eyes.

“What was that?” said Dor.

“Are you all right?” said Jean

Dor nodded.

“It was like a great, telepathic phoenix,” said Dor.

Jean nodded. “Sometimes I have dreams. That there’s a great firebird deep within. It’s powerful, but it’s uncaring. It’s like there’s a part of me that has no empathy. And sometimes I worry it will escape.” She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Dorothy. I thought I could help you, but I’m afraid of that power.”

Dor nodded. “It’s all right. Besides, you did help me. I think I understand now how to reach through the card to its origin.”

Jean smiled, but it was weak. “I think I should see the Professor.”

~*~

That evening, after dinner, Dor told Jubilee, Shadowcat, and Squirrel Girl that in the morning she had to move on.

“Jean and I had a breakthrough. I think I know how to do it now. It’s important, I think, to make sure these artifacts get back where they belong.”

“You will come back though, right?” said Shadowcat.

“You better,” said Squirrel Girl, sniffling and clearing her throat roughly.

“Of course,” said Dor. “You have been dear friends.”

Later, when Shadowcat and Squirrel Girl had gone to their dormroom, Dor lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to claim her.

“You meant it, right?” Jubilee said quietly.

Dor looked over to find Jubilee curled on her side, staring at the wall.

“Meant what?”

Jubilee turned over to look at Dor. “What you said, about coming back to visit. That we’re your friends?”

Dor nodded.

“Good.” Jubilee sniffled and took a shuddery breath. “Cause if you don’t, I… I’ll spank your bottom. Just like Minwu. I mean it. You’re my first friend, Dorothy. And I…” She sniffled again and cried quietly.

After a few moments, Dor got up and joined Jubilee on her narrow bed. Jubilee scootched to the wall and held her blanket open so Dor could get underneath. Dor lay on her side and Jubilee cuddle up behind her gently.


End file.
